Green Grass of Home
by Etrixan
Summary: Liars never prosper. In fact, in this sleepy town, liars are dying horribly and Sheriff Mike Hardy has no idea where to look for the culprit. When two improbable FBI agents show up to investigate he doesn't look too hard at their badges. Outsider-POV, minor character death, canon-level violence and gore; mild spoilers for season 8, canon compliant.
1. Prologue

**Fandom:** Supernatural, Season 8 canon-compliant  
**Characters**: Sam, Dean, OCs  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Contains:** Outside-POV, minor character death, canon-level violence and gore; mild spoilers for season 8

**Written for**: The fandomaid community on LiveJournal to raise funds for Superstorm Sandy relief auction. Specifically, this was written for leaves_girl who bought a 20,000 word case!fic. It took me a long, long time to get this to her (and it's not _exactly_ what she requested) so I've thrown in a few extra words, (like, 8.000, but who's counting?).

* * *

**Prologue:**

Jim Brogan was an asshole. He was also a drunk.

In the space of five years, he'd lost his job, his wife and kids, his house, and his truck—in that order, though he mourned his truck more than his kids. Losses like that would've cut anyone else some sympathy, but Brogan had been an asshole before all that happened. Now, he was a drunken asshole who _whined_.

It made receiving this call at the end of his shift that much more unpleasant for Sheriff Mike Hardy.

If Sheriff Hardy was honest with himself—and he always tried to be—then he could admit that his second favorite dream involving Jim Brogan was some poor trucker, dozing at the wheel of his semi, would one day hit Brogan as he weaved his way along the highway between wherever he came from and wherever he was going to. The lives of many of the people in Sheriff Hardy's town would be infinitely improved—Mike's included. But until that distant, dreamed-of day, Mike Hardy would do his job, and right now his job consisted of finding Jim Brogan and stopping him from whatever drunken act of selfish asshole-ry he was planning on dumping on Loreen and the kids. He was grateful to the barman at the Ramblin' Man roadhouse for the head's up, but it was still an unpleasant way to end his working day.

Finding Brogan was easy: he was on Highway 42, exactly as Mike figured he'd be.

It was Brogan's usual route from the Ramblin' Man to Loreen's mother's place—a near- straight shot that unfortunately Brogan never forgot no matter how much he'd drunk.

The farms on either side of Highway 42 were corporate, which meant no windbreaks and nothing to block the Sheriff's view of the road. It was easy enough to spot Brogan. The asshole looked to be his usual self—skinny, dirty, and very underdressed for the cool September evening. He was walking because a year back Brogan had tried leaving the Midnight Casino out on the Res after having had a few too many. He'd driven out of the parking lot and gone straight into the ditch on the other side of the main road, and there his car had stayed until the casino had it towed as scrap. Brogan had been car-less ever since. A small sign that sometimes God did listen to the puny mortals.

It didn't stop the man from drinking, though, Mike thought with a resigned sigh.

Mike could see the breeze trying to lift Brogan's limp hair. He wondered if the man even felt the cold anymore. He wondered if Brogan would feel it when it got ten degrees colder, twenty degrees—when it dropped to freezing.

God forgive him, but that was Mike's favorite dream involving Jim Brogan. That he'd peacefully freeze to death in the ditch some winter day, sparing the semi-truck driver the guilt of having killed a man.

Neither of those things was going to happen tonight, however. Highway 42 was seldom used by anyone except locals, and it was barely cold enough to frost Mike's breath.

Mike pulled his SUV over to the side and put on his flashers before getting out. Just because he didn't think a half-asleep trucker was going to come up this road didn't mean it couldn't happen.

In front of him, Jim Brogan spun crookedly to look at the lights. His left foot tangled in his right leg, and he nearly went over. Nearly, but not quite.

"Brogan," Mike said. "Where you going at this time of night?"

"Nowhere. I wazzn't doin' nothin'." Brogan's words were slurred, but the defensive whine was plenty evident.

Movement caught in the corner of his eye made Mike turn his head to look over the bordering farm. The crops were mostly in, only a few far-off rows still to be collected, so the fields were dark. There were no cows nibbling on the remains and fertilizing the field, and there were no trees or shrubs because corporate farming didn't allow for those kinds of things. Mike couldn't tell what had pulled his attention away from the man in front of him. Nothing was moving now.

He turned back to Brogan. "You weren't planning on going to see Loreen, were you, Brogan? Because you know that's not allowed."

Brogan smiled and showed off teeth that were chipped and yellow. "I wazzn't. No sir. Jus' goin' home."

Again, Mike could have sworn something moved at the side of the road. Maybe there was a coyote or a gopher among the weeds. He'd have to look for a coyote, but maybe tomorrow when there was light enough to see. He made a note of it in his field-book even as he continued questioning Brogan.

"So what are you doing on this road, Brogan?" Mike asked. "And don't tell me 'going home'; your home is two miles in the other direction."

"I _was_ goin' home," Brogan said. "Jus' got turned 'round some." Brogan raised a shaky hand to his stomach, scratching at its distended surface.

"I heard you were saying something different at the roadhouse," Mike said.

"Izzat what Donny said?" demanded Brogan. He tried to put his hands on his hips, but his right hand missed.

"Don's got nothing to do with this, Brogan," Mike said with a shake of his head. Donny, the Ramblin' Man's owner and barman, was also the guy who'd dated Loreen in high school before she'd gotten involved with Brogan. Brogan had never forgiven Donny for it. "Everybody knows Loreen's got a restraining order against you. You go into a local bar and start spouting off about how you're going to convince her to come back—" Again, Mike shook his head. "Well, they're not idiots."

"I never said nothin' about annya' that," Brogan protest with flung out arms. "I'm just walkin'… walkin' home, an' anyone who said diff'rent is a liar. Lyin' liars who lie," he mumbled.

Brogan's hand was pressed against his stomach as if it hurt. Probably his cirrhosis acting up, Mike thought. Cirrhosis at age 32 was another thing Brogan liked to whine about, but now it was in Mike's mind he'd have to take the possibility into account. If Brogan _did_ suffer a medical emergency, Mike was determined that no one would be able to say he'd made it worse. So he took another look at the man: his color was bad—pale, almost yellow, with circles under his eyes so dark it was like looking into the void. His breathing was off and smelly, too. Maybe from liver problems. Maybe from not having brushed his teeth since Loreen moved out five years ago.

"Let me take you home," the Sheriff offered. "You can sleep it off."

"Loreen lied," Brogan declared into the deepening twilight. "I never laid a finger on 'er. Or the kids. Never did."

Whatever concern had been building in Mike evaporated at those words. He'd responded to Loreen's 911 calls too many times to doubt that Loreen absolutely had not lied when she stood up in court to get her restraining order during the divorce. He decided he didn't care when Brogan stomach-scratching became violent enough to draw blood, or when Brogan gave a little mewl of pain. Especially when Brogan hadn't finished with his threats.

"I'm gonna get 'er back, yessir. She's m'wife an' she belongs with me." Brogan mumbled. He followed that up with a few other, similar idiocies and then turned to continue up the road to where his ex-wife lived.

Mike had had enough. He stepped forward and grabbed Brogan's arm. "That's as far as you go, Brogan," he said.

"Just gonna talk to 'er." Brogan's breath was worse. Like the water in the ditch at the side of the road, it smelled of dead and rotting things.

Mike turned his face away, and nudged Brogan toward his vehicle. "Not tonight you're not."

"But I love 'er. I've always loved 'er," Brogan said. "It's not my fault she got hurt."

Mike was so busy resisting the impulse to throw the whining asshole to the ground that he took two steps before he realized Brogan had stopped. A moment later Brogan collapsed to the pavement, wheezing and writhing.

"Brogan?"

Brogan curled up around his gut, which, now Mike was paying attention, seemed to have doubled in size. His grimy T-shirt couldn't fit around it anymore and was riding the top of it. Brogan's pale flesh shone in the dim light. "H-hurts. Holy fuck, it hurts."

It was either an alien getting ready to burst out of Brogan's stomach, or the man truly was having some kind of cirrhosis attack.

Mike reached for his radio, meaning to call dispatch, when Brogan made a broken, gurgling noise. Blood poured from his mouth and nose, his eyes and ears. He jerked, once, twice, rapping his head on the pavement with loud thumps. Mike abandoned the radio and grabbed his jacket from the vehicle. He folded it hastily, so he could use it as a cushion, but as he reached Brogan's side there was a 'pop' and blood was suddenly everywhere.

Mike blinked, needing a moment to understand that Brogan's _stomach_ had _exploded_. All over him.

Mike looked down at Brogan just to be sure, and yup, the side of the man's stomach had blown out. There were loops of intestines, and chunks of other organs, mixed in amongst the blood. What was left of Brogan's stomach was flaccid, like an old balloon newly popped. The image made Mike's own stomach rebel, and he had to turn away before he embarrassed himself. This was a crime scene, God_damn_it. Didn't matter how much Brogan had drunk, or how bad his health—stomachs didn't explode like that. Not outside of Hollywood.

Mike backed carefully out of the blast area, trying not to smudge the spatter pattern. The town didn't have a forensics department, just a local MD who acted as coroner on an "as-needed" basis. This was probably beyond her skills—not that he'd ever tell Lizzie that. He liked to be on that woman's good side as much as possible. He was already planning the rest of his evening when he turned away, back to his truck to get out the emergency road kit.

It was dark—dark enough to hide thin, green tendrils growing bloated and fat at the side of the road; and dark enough to hide them as they stretched, narrowed, and grew.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One:**

Mike watched through his office window as the big, black car drove up to their tiny municipal building. The two men inside could've been here for the Records Office, or even for the Fire Station, since this was a combined-use building, but Mike had a pretty good idea the two good-looking guys in their almost-expensive suits were going to come in the entrance to the Police Station.

He wasn't wrong, so he put a quarter in his fishing jar as a reward.

Maggie was out front, and Mike could hear her gravelly voice interrogating them. Maggie had been a deputy here for as long as Mike could remember. Never wanted to be Sheriff though—didn't like the politics. She also didn't like bullshitters, and Mike could tell from her tone she'd placed those two guys in that category.

Mike started his countdown: 5—4—3—2—

"Sheriff!"

He got up, put another quarter in his fishing jar, and went to the front desk.

"These guys say they're from the FBI," Maggie announced with obvious disbelief. "Here to look into the string of strange deaths we've been having." She turned to the strangers. "Whaddya say your names were again?"

"Agents Scott and McTiernan," said the shorter of the two, indicating himself as McTiernan and his partner as Scott.

Mike wasn't a small guy. He was nearly six feet and still carried the muscle he'd put on as an offensive linebacker in college, but as he reached over to shake the strangers' hands, he felt smaller than normal. McTiernan wasn't so bad, but Scott… Scott was easily a head taller than Mike and just as wide.

"I'm Mike," he said. "Mike Hardy." He waited until Scott mumbled out something that could've been a first name before turning to the shorter one.

"Dean," the agent said without prodding. His eyes didn't flicker, his color didn't change. Mike would be willing to bet the guy's first name truly was Dean. He wouldn't be putting any money down on the last name being real, though.

"Come into my office and we'll talk." He lifted the counter and swung open the gate, ignoring Maggie's skeptical look. "Did you boys need any coffee?"

Scott shook his head, but Dean said yes. He said no to cream and sugar when he heard they had a Tassimo, meaning the coffee would be fresh. Once he heard that, Agent Scott asked for a cup as well. With a lifted eyebrow, Mike asked Maggie to bring them. With a silent snort and an eye-roll, she left the room.

"So," he drawled as he let them settle into the uncomfortable wooden chairs in front of his desk. "You want to know about Wilby, Brogan, and Connolly."

"Connolly?" Dean asked with a small frown.

"Beth Connolly, age 16," Mike explained. "She died of syphilis three nights ago."

"Syphilis!" Agent Scott said in surprise. "That's completely treatable."

Beside Scott, Dean swallowed down a smile and muttered, "You'd know."

Scott gave his partner a malevolent look, and Mike figured there was a story there. But Mike wasn't interested in their story: he wanted these killings solved and resolved—so he ignored it. He said, "It is treatable, and she would've had it treated, if Doc Cole had found any sign of the disease during her last exam. Which was less than a month ago."

"A month," Dean repeated. "People don't die of syphilis in a month."

"These days, people don't die of syphilis period," Mike pointed out. "However, that's the cause our ME put down in her report."

Scott shifted in his seat. "So we've got Jim Brogan—a known alcoholic who died of sudden acute cirrhosis; Torson Wilby—a builder, being sued for negligence and endangerment, who died of carbon monoxide poisoning in one of his own buildings; and now Beth Connolly—who died of syphilis." Scott stopped and frowned.

He tried again. "Contracting syphilis…" Again, he stalled out. He looked at Mike, cheeks pink with embarrassment.

Mike was amused that an FBI agent—real or not—would have so much trouble discussing the details of a case. He could've waited for "Agent" Scott to ask the question, draw out the man's embarrassment; but again, it came back to the fact that he didn't care who was investigating as long as someone was.

He opened his mouth to answer Scott's unspoken question but Dean was already talking. "It's always assumed that if someone catches an STD then they've been sleeping around. Would that be the case here?"

"You're asking, was she a whore?" Mike kept his voice carefully neutral.

Dean grunted and shook his head. "Let's call it 'sexually active' and leave it." There was no judgment in the man's tone and Mike relaxed. Unlike some in the community, like the Mayor's wife, Mike didn't feel these deaths were about the victims' so-called sins.

"Because you're not one to be throwing labels like that around," Scott muttered.

"And neither are you, Sam. Not anymore." The glare Dean shot his partner—Sam—was another sign of a long and complex history between the two.

Mike interrupted. "Beth Connolly _was _sexually active, and had been for some years."

"But you said she was sixteen," Sam protested.

"Sixteen going on sixty," Mike replied. He was pretty sure Beth's grandfather had sexually abused her. As Mike suspected, he'd done to her mother before her. He'd never been able to get either of them to admit it, and without someone to lay charges, Old Man Connolly had been untouchable, until an anonymous tip caused an IRS audit and he was charged with tax evasion and fraud. Officially, Mike had no idea who'd tipped them off. Unofficially, Mike suspected Maggie.

"The thing is," Mike went on, "she could've contracted syphilis since her last doctor's appointment; it's not impossible."

"It certainly shouldn't've killed her," Sam argued. "Not in a month."

"Was it one of those superbug versions?" Dean suggested. He leaned forward. "Like the alkie guy–"

"Brogan," his partner corrected.

"Yeah, him. He had cirrhosis, and it would've killed him in a decade, maybe less. But he doesn't get a decade. Instead, all of a sudden–" Dean formed his hands into an expanding starburst and made an explosive sound. His partner frowned at him in disapproval, but Mike was glad to see the "agent" had picked up on the salient facts.

"And Wilby'd been short-cutting on his materials for years," Mike said. "Reports from his last locations say he built over badly drained swamps, old landfills—anywhere land was cheap. Here, he bought up the old air strip."

"He faked the results of the environmental analysis, right?" Sam asked, looking through his notebook.

"He cleaned it up enough for it to not stink anymore," Mike confirmed. "But the dirt and water was laced with airplane fuel and chemicals. Anybody who lived there long enough would be affected by it, especially if they planted a garden."

Sam nodded. "The vegetables would be tainted as well."

"I knew vegetables could be bad for you," Dean muttered.

Sam rolled his eyes and continued. "But they'd be more likely to develop cancer twenty or thirty years from now, rather than drop dead from carbon monoxide poisoning."

"Middle of the day, during an open house," Mike commented. "People going in and out, so the door was opening and air circulating. Yeah, carbon monoxide poisoning does seem a little unlikely. However," he added, "that is what the autopsy showed."

"Wilby was showing the house that day?" Dean asked, frowning. Mike nodded. "You wouldn't happen to have contact information for those people?"

Mike opened the folder on his desk. He pulled out a handwritten list inside. "It's a list of names and phone numbers and emails of all the people who entered a drawing for a new Flamemaster double-tank barbecue," he said.

Agent Scott's eyes lit up. "Can we get a copy?"

"Sure," Mike said easily. "Won't be needing it though. I'm coming with you."

Before he let the two fake agents loose in his town, he needed to know if they were what he thought they were. He needed to know if he could trust them to kill only what needed to be killed and not anybody or anything else.

He needed to know if he could trust them to do the job right.

.o0o.

Mike drove out to the first couple's house in Lavenda. The two almost certainly fake agents followed in their classic car.

It was a black monster of a car, intimidating and attention-grabbing, and completely unlike just about every official vehicle or rental Mike had ever seen used by government agents in his twenty-odd years of service. He was pretty sure those two boys thought their high-quality badges and their decent-quality suits were sufficient cover, and Mike could admit they _were_ good—as were the "yessirs" and "nosirs" they used exactly like people used to obeying orders—but the car gave it away. That car was personal.

He should probably write down the license plate number and run it.

He should… but he wasn't going to.

Three bodies. Three autopsies. Mike wasn't going to be checking up on Sam "Scott" and Dean "McTiernan".

He pulled over to the curb, carefully noting the time in his logbook before climbing out of his vehicle. He waited on the sidewalk for Sam and Dean to reach him.

"Don and Leslie Hunt," he said. "They were with Wilby when he collapsed."

"They were checked?" Sam asked. His partner was looking at the house, looking at the yard, looking for anything out of place.

Mike wondered what Dean was looking for even as he answered Sam. "Thoroughly. Not a hint of anything in their lungs. They remained fully conscious and self-aware, phoning 911 and giving clear, concise descriptions to the operator."

"Which they shouldn't have been able to do if the house was filled with carbon monoxide." Sam nodded understanding.

Mike decided Dean liked stating the obvious. Maybe it helped to embed the information in his mind. Mike liked to write things out for the same reason. Everybody had their way of working, he guessed.

Mike pushed the doorbell, and they waited on the step for the door to open. It didn't take long. "Hello, Leslie," Mike said with a light smile.

"Sheriff Hardy," she responded, opening the door wider. "Don's not here. He's out at his parents' farm."

"That's all right. We can talk to you just as easily."

Leslie's welcoming smile slipped. "It's about Wilby again, isn't it?" It wasn't a question.

"I'm afraid so," Mike confirmed. He swept off his hat. "Can we come in?"

Leslie stepped aside and waved them all in. Mike made sure to pause and wipe his shoes on the coarse mat at the entrance and was pleased when both Dean and Sam did the same.

"I don't know what else I can tell you, Sheriff," she said as she closed the door. She ushered them into the front room.

"Why were you buying a house from someone who was being sued for fraudulent building practices?" Dean asked bluntly.

Mike saw his partner frown at him, but Leslie merely sighed. She sat on the arm of the couch, not intimidated by having the three of them standing over her. Mike had discovered that nothing much intimidated Leslie Hunt.

"We weren't," she answered. "We were trying to gather evidence for a friend. My husband and I posed as home-buyers and Mr. Wilby gave us the 5-cent tour. We took pictures on our cell phones, just like any serious house-shoppers would."

Sam leaned forward. "Do you still have those photos?"

"Oh, yes, of course," Leslie said. "But I already gave a copy of them to the Sheriff. On a flash drive."

"I'll make you a copy," Mike offered.

"So you were investigating," Dean said, bringing the conversation back on topic. "Did you see anything or hear anything that raised your alarms?"

Leslie nodded. "Walls didn't line up; corners weren't 90-degrees," she said. "I mean, houses shift over time, but these were new. And the ground outside had sunken over the pipes, and I thought it seemed too narrow for sewage outflow."

"How about smells?" Dean asked. "Did you smell anything weird?"

Leslie shrugged. "He had a bread-maker going. To make it seem more home-like?" she added when the two "agents" looked confused. "It's a standard show home trick."

Mike had already asked Leslie all his questions, so he kept the bulk of his attention on the two agents.

The big one wrote copious notes, looking at Leslie with tired, earnest eyes. Dean's voice was a vaguely accusatory growl, but Mike figured his voice always sounded that way. The man sounded like he smoked three packs a day, but there was no tobacco smell hanging around him. Maybe he'd inhaled a hell of a lot of smoke in a fire or some such. Mike didn't plan on asking about it, but he filed it away with the knowledge of the large-caliber handguns Dean and Sam both carried at their backs.

He stood patiently as Leslie Hunt repeated everything she'd told him—how Wilby had given them a spiel about bringing his development company up here because of his poor, sick dad (imaginary), and the company's inspection record in his home state (good, but half the inspector's office was up on bribery charges), and how nothing was more important to him than the safety and happiness of the families who bought from him. All typical salesman stuff, Mike had concluded.

Then Wilby had taken the Hunts to the back deck to view the yard. He'd suddenly become confused and incoherent, talking about evil spirits and demons. Then he'd vomited on their feet, collapsed, convulsed, and died almost before either of the Hunts could pull out their cell phones to call for help. All within sight of two other couples who were also viewing the show home.

Mike wasn't hopeful that the two "agents" would learn anything new.

Sure enough, as they walked down the Hunt's path to the vehicles, Dean slapped his notebook against his open hand.

"Nothing!"

"Nothing obvious, at least," Sam temporized.

"He talked of evil spirits," Mike threw out to see how the agents reacted.

Dean shook his head. Sam frowned. "Delusions and hallucinations are a common side effect of carbon monoxide poisoning," he said. "I don't think we should read anything into that."

Mike hadn't put much stock into it either, so he just shrugged.

"Agent" Scott was looking at the list. "Next up is… Tony and Velma Wazcheweski?

Mike took a look at the ancient Chevy, and bet the pair would like any idea that cut down on gas consumption. "We'll stop by the show home first," he said. "It's on the way."

Dean nodded. "Sounds good."

Mike climbed into his SUV, settling his heavy belt comfortably with the ease of long practice. He made a quick report to Maggie, letting her know where he was going and who he was with. She must've had someone at the desk because she didn't give him much of a hard time. He'd take it, and enjoy the ride. Which he did. Aside from the weird deaths, it was the perfect morning to drive around the county. The trees in the windbreaks were starting to put out their autumn colors, but everything was still mostly green.

He checked his rear view, making sure he hadn't lost Dean—nearly impossible on these roads, but still. They were there, following a safe two-car-lengths behind.

In keeping with the general air of caution, Mike signaled his turn a good distance from the crossroad. Wilby had torn down most of the old trees to make access easier, so nothing hid the new buildings and the turn-off was obvious. Plus the "Open House" signs and flags still fluttered along the side of the road, even though the subdivision was shut down while county and state investigators went through the place with backhoes and crowbars.

To Mike, the development was like a jagged scar against the low, rolling fields: ugly and out of place. The box houses were nearly identical to each other and packed tight, as if huddling together against an unknown threat.

Although that one might be accurate, Mike considered.

When he'd been out here originally, turf had been laid in front. It was gone; carefully hauled away for testing. Sunken patches in the dirt revealed where inspectors had dug up pipelines. Dried mud coated the driveway and police tape crisscrossed the property. It merely highlighted the large "CONDEMNED" sticker on the front door.

Dean and Sam were standing on the pavement when Mike got out. Dean scanned the surroundings while Sam sniffed the air like a dog.

"Pretty rank, huh," Mike commented. Sam nodded. Mike continued, "Wilby claimed it was from the unfinished septic system, but he also paid off the inspector, who's now a former inspector."

Mike opened the door to the empty house. All the display furnishing had been returned, so there was nothing but blank walls and carpet, and even that was patchy as the inspectors had taken samples to test.

"What's going to happen to the houses?" Sam asked. "Will they be torn down?"

"That'll depend on who buys the property and what they want to do with it." Mike shrugged. "We got patrols out here, keeping kids and looky-loos away until the health and safety inspections are all done."

Dean tipped his head slightly. Sam shook his. Dean's eyebrows went up. Sam's came down. Dean sighed, resigned. They both nodded, and Mike was sure they'd both be careful if they broke into the house later.

Sam pulled out his notebook and consulted his notes, while Dean opened cupboards and examined walls. "Leslie Hunt said they toured the whole house, right?"

"That's right," Mike answered as Sam said, "Yeah."

"Mind if I take a look around, Sheriff?" Dean asked.

Mike waved him off. He turned to "Agent" Scott. "Anything in particular you'd like to see?"

Sam cleared his throat. "How 'bout the deck? Where he died."

The deck was big, with room for a full set of furniture and a huge barbeque. There'd been a massive one—the Flamemaster Wilby was using as a lure. Mike had eyed it guiltily even knowing he should've been concentrating on the dead body. Now the deck was barren—no furniture, no barbeque. Nothing to hide the fact it had been badly made.

"So they stepped out here, and…?" Sam had his notebook out, too.

"Went over to the railing so Wilby could point out the view."

Sam looked out over the backyard, seeing the same thing Mike had seen: a whole lotta flat land and a few grain silos. And a rusty metal Quonset hut that had been the hangar and flight center.

"If you squint, you can see mountains," Mike added.

Sure enough, Sam squinted. "Yeah, right."

He walked to the railing. "Kind of a long landing strip, isn't it?"

"There was a USAF training center here during the war. Shut down after Korea." Mike replied. "They pulled up the concrete in the seventies—grass is easier to maintain. After that, there were only private planes and the occasional charter. Fishermen coming in for vacations, that kind of thing." Mike paused. "I don't think anybody thought much of the occasional fuel spill. After all, they were all small planes; how much damage could they do?"

"A lot, judging from all the brown patches over there," Sam said with a nod to area near the hangar.

"Over seventy years it adds up," Mike agreed. "Groundwater's no good. Top two feet of soil needs to be hauled away. More, where they had the fuel stored."

Sam looked down at the ground closer to the house. "It's even bad way out here."

Mike glanced down. The dark-green broadleaf ground cover he'd noticed on his last trip out here was now grey-brown and withered. "Huh."

"What?" Dean asked as he came out onto the deck.

"Nothing," Mike replied. He hoped it was nothing.

Sam opened his mouth to pursue it, but Mike's cell phone rang out with the theme from _Cops_ indicating an official call. He looked up at the probably-fake agents, and tried not to feel embarrassed. "My deputy programmed it," he explained like he always did.

Everyone in town knew Toby had found and downloaded the Sheriff's ringtone, and they gave the young deputy no end of hassle over it. They gave Mike even more because he hadn't yet figured out how to reprogram his own damn phone.

"Maggie, what's up?"

_"Donny out at the roadhouse just called." Maggie sounded tentative, which was unlike her. "Some tourist just keeled over."_

"Keeled over?" he questioned.

_"'Got sick, passed out, and died,' is what I was told,"_ Maggie answered. _"But Donny sounded shaken, and nothing disturbs that boy."_

Mike sighed and rubbed his forehead. "So it fits the pattern?"

_"Dunno, Sheriff,"_ Maggie said. _"I've sent for Doc Cole. She'll meet you at the roadhouse."_

"Okay," Mike said, bowing to the inevitable. "We'll be there in ten."

_"We?"_ his deputy asked pointedly.

"Special Agents McTiernan and Scott will be accompanying me to the latest crime scene, yes," he responded flatly. On the other end of the line, Maggie snorted, but she recognized his tone well enough not to question him further. He liked working with Maggie. She was a good second-in-command.

"There's been another one?" Sam asked while Mike put the phone back on his belt.

"Maybe, maybe not," he answered. "Won't know for sure until we investigate." He gave the two men in their mostly-cheap suits a small smile. "The scene's on the way back to town. You can follow me."

.o0o.

The Ramblin' Man roadhouse had started life as a double-wide trailer planted ten feet outside municipal lines when the town had voted to go dry back in the sixties. The ban had been lifted after fifteen years, but aside from paint and new chairs, the roadhouse hadn't changed much until six years ago. That was when Donny took over the business and added another trailer decked out as a kitchen. Then he hired his buddy, who used to cook for the officer's mess in Germany, and the Ramblin' Man had become the place to go to have a seriously good steak. It was why the dead fisherman and his buddies had stopped there.

"–and it was a really good steak," said Vern, a mid-level bureaucrat with a fly-covered fishing hat and a growing paunch. "Everything Bob said it was."

"Bob" was Robert Wezsnovski and Vern's boss back in St. Louis. He'd loaned them the cabin on the lake for the weekend. Mike had had to get them to spell the last name four times.

"Of course, Bill kept saying it wasn't as good a steak as this one he'd eaten in Tokyo." Bill was the dead guy. "Bill always had something better someplace else."

Mike looked at the speaker, George Alvarado. Slim, predatory, in command—there was something in his tone.

Beside him, Sam shifted. "He did, did he?" he prompted, and Mike figured the man had heard the same thing he had.

"If you went deer hunting in Minnesota," George said with snort, "then he'd hunted bear. In Alaska."

"Or lions in Africa," Vern corroborated. "And if you talked about a canoe trip on a lake, then Bill had to tell you about his white-water rafting trip down the Salmon River in Idaho–"

"It has Class IV rapids, don't you know!" they all chorused.

"Bit of a braggart," Mike summarized. Again, they all nodded. Mike downgraded their status from 'friends' to 'companions.'

_"_We didn't want to invite him," Vern said. "But he just doesn't hear 'no'. I mean, he didn't—he didn't hear the word 'no'—not ever," Vern said, blinking rapidly. It was the first sign that any of them were upset that Bill had _died_, rather than upset that the manner was weird or that he'd died in front of them.

"He always invited himself along," George added, waving his hand in a circle. "Anything we were doing, he had to come, too."

"It was okay at first," Vern continued. "Ten years ago, when we first started working together, he seemed like a decent guy."

"Then Vern got promoted, and Yi married a beauty queen," George said pointing his finger at their silent third companion, Yi Chou.

"Miss Alabama, 1998," Yi said with a goofy smile.

"And Bill got really competitive," George finished. "Biggest house, fastest car."

"Best… y'know… _sex_," Vern added. They all nodded. "Lots about his sex life."

"Then this trip. He didn't catch anything. I mean, neither did Vern–"

Vern shook his head.

"But Vern didn't pout about it." George's voice was filled with disgust, and Mike figured that, even if he'd lived, Bill wouldn't have been going on any more fishing trips with George.

Vern took up the narrative. "What made it bad was how he went on and on about taking lessons from some fly fishing champion up in Canada."

"Not on his salary, he didn't," Yi said. They were the first words he'd spoken outside of his mild brag about his wife and his contact information.

Mike turned to look at him, and raised his pencil expectantly.

"Bill was an ass," Yi said baldly. "And a liar, and a thief. The cops back home have probably seized all his documents and assets—I know they were going to."

George and Vern turned to stare at their friend who shrugged. "It's why I agreed to let him come along."

"You sneaky son-of-a-bitch," George said. It was hard to tell if he was accusing Mr. Chou, or congratulating him on being sneaky. Either way, it soon became apparent to Mike that he wasn't going to get anything more out of the trio until they'd had a chance to speculate on events back home.

With a small nod, Sam indicated that he'd stick around to ask the trio more questions. Mike left "Agent" Scott behind, and wandered over to where "Agent" McTiernan was staring down at Lizzie Cole as she examined the body.

There was something more than clinical in Dean's expression when he looked at the doctor, but that was hardly surprising in a hetero male: even in her ugly blue coveralls and the little paper hat, Doc Cole was a fine-looking woman. Mike had noticed it right off, and in the eight years since she'd moved here, he hadn't once regretted letting her know he'd noticed.

She was looking a little rougher than normal right now. Some kind of stomach bug was making the rounds of the acreages, and Lizzie had been pulling double-shifts at the hospital as well as being called out to all these freaky deaths. As a former trauma surgeon in Chicago, she'd been the obvious choice to be ME, and the extra income was always nice, but looking at the deepening lines beside her eyes and mouth, Mike couldn't help but resent the toll it was taking on her.

If it had only been the flu thing, Mike wouldn't've worried. Lizzie would fight to save everyone she could, and she'd be frustrated and hurt when she couldn't, but she'd come out the other side the same as she'd gone in. But this other thing—the thing making stomachs explode, and asphyxiating people in backyards._That_ was something that could change Lizzie, and he wouldn't be able to do anything to save her. He'd moved here to be _safe _and now he wasn't, and she wasn't, and he _hated _it!

He'd always hated it.

He lifted his belt, feeling the weight of the gun and ammo, the big flashlight and the handcuffs—the realities of this life. It grounded him in the now, as it always did. It let him back away from panic and fear, and remember that here—in _this _place—he was in control.

Professional. Clinical. Unafraid.

"Doc," he said formally because they were both on the job here.

"Hey, Sheriff," she said in vague acknowledgement. She was staring down at the dead Mr. Bill as if he had personally offended her.

"Well?" he asked, prodding her out of her reverie.

Lizzie waved at the brown and red stains coating the victim's pants. "Aside from the obvious, there are no external symptoms of anything I can see," she answered. "There are no signs of stroke or heart attack, which I'd expected, but there's also no signs of poison or toxins." She huffed out a breath as she stood, putting offended hands on her offended hips. "Not that I know of any that would cause…_this_."

"Gall stones maybe?" Mike quipped, to be a Bruce Willis-tough-guy. Behind him, Dean snorted in amusement, so he guessed it worked.

"Gallstones don't explode out your ass." Lizzie glared at him. "Plus, if this man had gallstones big enough to cause this amount of damage to his rectum, then there's no way he would've been sitting at the table all happy and hungry."

_"_Actually," Sam said as he walked over. "All three say Bill started showing signs of discomfort very soon after they sat down. They took it for indigestion, but didn't care enough to ask."

"Nice," Dean said. He lifted his brows in a silent question for his partner, and received a small headshake in reply. Dean grimaced. "I'm gonna take a look around. Maybe we missed something."

Mike looked around the open plainness that was the Ramblin' Man's décor, but said nothing. "When you taking him?" he asked Lizzie instead.

Lizzie stared down at the body. She was frowning and unhappy, and Mike repressed his urge to soothe her with a vapid promise that they'd figure it out. He wanted to, but knew the doc would punch him if he tried.

"Maybe it's time we called the CDC," she said softly.

"Agent" Scott perked up. "Center for Disease Control? But none of the causes are similar."

"Except for their extreme weirdness," Lizzie replied.

"Look," Sam said sympathetically. "I understand your desire to know what's going on; I just don't think the CDC will be able to help you."

"How're you going to explain it to them for one thing," Mike added. Sam nodded with a rueful smile. "Let's give Sam and Dean a chance before we escalate this."

Lizzie looked up at him, eyebrow raised.

It was a question, because Mike never hesitated to ask for help when there were lives at stake. Mike gave her a small nod in return. If the two men were what he thought they were, then they were probably the town's best hope.

She quirked an eyebrow back at him, and Mike knew he'd have some "'splainin' to dooo" when they were at home. But he also knew Lizzie trusted him enough to hear his explanation.

A nasal voice broke their conversation. "Hey, Sheriff Mike? Can I go now?"

Mike turned to face the speaker. It was Joesy Miller, one of the roadhouse's regulars.

"Have I talked to you yet, Joesy?" Mike asked back.

"No, sir. That you haven't."

"Then I guess you can't go, yet."

_"_Aw, c'mon, man!" Joesy slapped his hand down on the table. "It's not like I saw anything, or like I was doing anything."

Lizzie rolled her eyes in commiseration before she turned back to Bill's body. It freed Mike to head over to Joesy's table.

Joesy Miller was Caucasian, with the looks that ran in his mother's family, the body that came from his father's, and a shit work ethic that didn't come from either of them. He looked like the poster boy for good-old American farm boys, but Mike knew Joesy fleeced the tourists at pool, and the locals at darts, and sold drugs when he thought he could get away with it. He worked as little as possible, but whined about "wetbacks" taking all the good jobs. He also stole candy bars from the gas station out of habit and lied as easy as breathing.

He'd often been found in the company of one Jim Brogan, which made him even more unattractive in Mike's eyes.

Mike paused, half-way to sitting, as Joesy coughed, a wheezing hack that was going around the county. Mike inched his butt a little farther to the side. Last thing he needed was to get sick now.

"You know, Joesy, I'm finding you all over my investigations," Mike said. "You were the last person to see Brogan, one of the last to see Beth Connolly."

"I didn't sleep with Beth, Sheriff," Joesy protested. "She was just a kid. I don't do jailbait."

Debatable, Mike thought, but ultimately unprovable.

"And you worked with Wilby," he continued.

_"_I just dropped off building supplies," Joesy protested. "Didn't stick around. Just, in-out, like ducks mating, right?"

By this time, "Agent" Scott had joined them. "You were here when they arrived?" he asked.

"Yeah," Joesy nodded. "Just grabbing a quick lunch before heading out. Got things to do, man."

Mike snorted. "Carl fired you again, Joesy. You got nothing more important to do than this."

"Did you notice anything unusual about the group?" Sam said, indicating the businessmen who were still huddled in the corner, waiting for the body of their companion to be taken away.

"I hardly noticed them," Joesy said, shaking his head. He coughed, and Mike thought it sounded a little guilty.

"You didn't notice their three-hundred-dollar shoes and five-hundred-dollar watches?" Mike asked in disbelief. "You didn't wonder how you could sucker them into a game of pool or poker?"

Joesy shook his head. "I told you: I had things to do—legitimate things. I hardly noticed them." Joesy's voice thinned out, and he gave another rough cough to clear his throat. Then he coughed again, for longer.

"Are you okay?" Mike asked.

Joesy stopped coughing, but his next breath sounded like it was being dragged through a clogged drain. His lips turned blue as Mike watched. "Lizzie!" he called, sliding out from behind the table.

He and Sam pulled Joesy out of the booth and laid him out on the floor. It helped a little, but not enough. They loosened his collar, checked his throat for blockages. Mike even heard Sam whispering a prayer over Joesy, but he knew it was hopeless even before Lizzie rushed over.

"We can throw him in the back of the creeper," Mike suggested anyway. "Faster than waiting for the ambulance.

Joesy's breath rattled and stilled. Mike watched Lizzie do compressions, heard her curse. Watery blood gushed from Joesy's mouth with every push.

Sam looked at him. Shook his head.

Mike nodded. He put his hand on Lizzie's shoulder. "He's gone."

"No!" She leaned down to give mouth-to-mouth.

Mike's breath hitched and his adrenaline spiked.

Quickly, Sam bent and stopped her. "There's no point."

Mike let out a shaky breath. His stomach uncoiled more slowly.

"This makes no sense!" Lizzie looked down at Joesy, looked over at the tourist, looked up at them. "There's no _reason_ for any of this—no _cause!_"

"That we know of," Sam corrected.

She turned to glare at the agent. "I may not be a big city doctor _now_, but I interned in Chicago. I have seen a lot of death, and even the weirdest ones made sense."

Mike decided it was time to intervene. He put his hand under her arm and lifted her up. "We'll figure it out, Lizzie, but I don't know if it'll ever make sense."

He could feel their eyes on him: Lizzie's and the fake agent's. He didn't look at Sam. Mike knew he'd only look surprised. Lizzie, however… Lizzie's look demanded answers. Answers he tried with his eyes to promise to give. He must've done okay, because Lizzie nodded.

"Okay. Okay. You figure it out," she said. "You figure it out, and I'll make sense of it."

Again, Mike lost his breath. She'd cover for them.

Lizzie, his straight-arrow better-half, had just promised to cover the truth with a more palatable official story.

He wanted to kiss her.

He contented himself with his own heartfelt nod and a smile. "I'll take you up on that."

.o0o.

Lizzie shooed them out of the Roadhouse. She'd shoo-ed everybody non-medical out and shut the doors on their heels.

Mike and Sam moved out to where Dean stood staring at the fields. Dean didn't look like he was assessing a threat, or even thinking about the case. He just looked lost. When Mike realized it, he abruptly cut to the right. He would make his report to Maggie from a few steps away—it was all the privacy he could give the two "agents". Mike lifted his radio and tried not to listen in on their conversation.

_"What?" Sam asked._

"Maggie. We need a second ambulance out here."

_"It occurred to me that I've been travelling the Midwest for thirty years, through farm after farm, and I have no idea what that plant is." _

Dean's voice was matter-of-fact. Sam's return comment sounded pole-axed.

_"You're… thinking about plants?"_

Mike nearly missed Maggie's response. Not a problem—he'd had a lot of years with the deputy.

"No. I'm not telling you what happened over an open radio," he said. Maggie sniffed unhappily.

_"You don't know what it is either do you," Dean said._

_"Ummm. Looks like… barley?"_

Mike looked at the plant in question. It covered barely a quarter of the field beyond the parking lot. It was kind of familiar, but certainly not barley—more like potatoes.

_"_ _You have no more idea than I do."_

Except that was Nick Patteson's field, and Nick wouldn't plant potatoes this late in the year.

He finally caught the gist of what his deputy was saying.

"For god's sake, Maggie," Mike said firmly into the radio. "Neither McTiernan nor Scott pulled their guns on anyone."

_"It's kind of stupid, isn't it? We saved all this, and we don't even know what it is," Dean said sadly._

"Just send the damn ambulance," Mike ordered before clicking off. He didn't want to know, Mike told himself. He didn't.

_"Isn't it enough that it exists, at all?"_

Mike gave his sore head a rub, pulled his hat back on straight, and marched over to the two men. He didn't want to hear whatever Dean might say in response to his partner's comment. He was not into noble self-sacrifice for the greater good. He was a small-town sheriff, for Christ's sake. He'd been one for a lot of years, and he wasn't going to pine for a life he'd left behind in his teens.

"Sheriff," Dean acknowledged.

"Find anything?"

"Just this." Dean jerked his head in a 'follow-me' gesture, and headed up the highway. Mike followed, giving Toby a wave to let the deputy know he was leaving the scene.

Dean didn't go far before left the road, heading out into the overgrown verge. Mike could only be thankful there was no drainage ditch at this point—he was getting a little too old to be hopping over smelly, stagnant water. A few steps on, Dean stopped. He pointed at the body of a dead hare.

"Tell me if this is normal," Dean said.

Pale brown fur stood out easily against the deep-green ground cover. Mike tried to look at the body the way Dean had looked at it—what had he seen that made it out of place? It had been dead at least a couple days, but scavengers hadn't touched it.

"Rabbits get hit by cars all the time," Mike ventured, but the hare's body was pristine.

"And drag themselves ten yards from the road to die?" Dean scoffed.

Flies were buzzing around it, but none were landing.

"The plant's growing over it," Sam said. "So it has to have been here a while."

"No decomposition," Dean argued.

Mike looked closer. Dean was right. He looked at the area around the rabbit's body. The broad-leafed plant looked both familiar and unfamiliar. Then he realized it was the same plant which covered up a quarter of Nick Patteson's field, the one he'd thought looked like potatoes.

"Huh," he grunted.

"What?" Both agents looked at him.

He shook his head a little. "Nothing. Only, I'm gonna have to tell Nick Patteson that he's got an aggressive, invasive plant species attacking his south-forty."

Both agents looked confused.

Mike nodded at the plant. "That's not potato or barley."

"So what is it, then?" Sam asked.

"An aggressive, invasive plant species that's taking over his south forty." He kept his voice flat and dry, but Dean got it anyway. The fake agent smirked at his partner.

"I think it's the same plant I saw at Wilby's development," Mike continued. "In which case, we've got a bigger problem than Nick Patteson's lost crop."

Dean shifted his weight. "Forget the plant," he said impatiently. "What about the rabbit?"

Mike took off his hat and scratched his head. "Well, could be the plant is poisonous. Rabbit ate some and died."

"Hah!" Dean snorted. "More proof that vegetables are deadly." Sam gave his partner a sad headshake.

Mike ignored them. "I'll have to get somebody out to test it before we burn it."

"Wait," Sam said. "If it's poisonous, and it was all over Wilby's property…" he trailed off.

"Then maybe it's the reason Wilby died so weird?" Dean finished.

Mike frowned at them. "Wilby wasn't hopping around in the stuff. Unless you think there's something else going on."

Dean and Sam shifted and stole glances at the other. Small tells, but Mike prepared himself for the lie.

Finally, Dean caved. "Toxic fumes?" he suggested.

Mike gave that suggestion the derisive snort it deserved, and tried a different tack.

"What made you notice the rabbit?" Mike asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I wouldn't've thought twice about seeing a dead rabbit," Mike explained. "But you did."

"I don't know." Dean shifted like a little boy being lectured by his father. "Maybe it's because I'm a city boy." He smiled charmingly. "Not used to dead animals."

Mike snorted again: thirty years travelling the Midwest did not a city boy make.

However, since he'd already chosen to bury his head about what the two men weren't, it was too late to nit-pick about this.

Mike started back towards the pavement. The two "agents" followed. Like ducklings.

He even helped steady Dean when he stumbled to prove there were no hard feelings.

By the time they got back to the roadhouse, the second ambulance. They had arrived at the roadhouse. Mike could hear Lizzie ordering young Toby and the paramedics around. He could also hear the fishermen complaining about having to stick around, and Donny's staff pelting everyone with questions about whether they'd be going back to work. Mike sighed. He was the County Sheriff, elected three times over, and yet some days his job still came down to crowd control.

He turned to his companions. "I'm going to be stuck here for a while," Mike said. "You two might as well go see the other sites before it gets dark." A part of him wanted to go with them He stamped on it ruthlessly—they'd have to follow something close to procedures if he went.

"It's unlikely we'll find anything," Sam pointed out.

Mike gave a little shrug. "New eyes. Fresh perspective. Don't see how it's gonna hurt the nothing we've got so far."

Dean's mouth went up on one side, while Sam merely looked sheepish. "Good point," he said.

"Tomorrow morning, though," Mike went on. "Back at the station. Bright and early."

Sam nodded, "We'll be there."

Mike watched them get into their classic, gas-guzzler. He listened as old heavy metal music blared from the speakers. He lifted his arms to protect his face when the spinning tires spat rocks and dirt at him.

'Federal agents' his rear end.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two:**

It was late by the time Mike got back to the three-bedroom bungalow he and Lizzie owned. It was old and small, but they liked it. Lizzie's son was grown up and living in Europe, and she didn't want any more. Mike was fine with that. After all, he had a police department and a whole town to look after. It had always satisfied his parental cravings, and he knew too well the dangers of becoming a parent when you weren't one hundred percent committed to the project.

He'd always thought it somewhat ironic that he, as the most settled of the Hardys, was the only one who hadn't had kids.

The two extra bedrooms were his and Lizzie's offices. It worked better having their work areas separated, as she was Post-It notes, personalized paper-clips, and papers spread out everywhere and he… was not. Too many years on the road, living out of a couple bags.

Tonight, he didn't go into his office. Instead, he went into the fridge and reheated some leftover lasagna. Probably not the best thing to eat in the middle of the night, but he was too worn to care.

Five victims.

Most of them Mike didn't give two goddamns about. Wilby was a crook. Brogan and Joesy were snakes. And Bill Lambert didn't seem to have been much of a prize either. Then there was Beth. Beth's death _hurt_. Considering what he suspected, Lord knows he'd tried to talk to her, to get her to tell the truth, but between her grandfather's influence and her mother's own fervent denial, Mike had been fighting an army with a bug-swatter. No matter what she'd thought of herself, she'd been the only innocent among them.

No matter what she'd thought of herself, she'd been the only innocent among the five…

If only he'd figured out how to reach her…

Lizzie would give him hell for thinking himself responsible. He knew it. Knew she was right, even. Didn't stop the guilt. But since Lizzie did the same damn-fool thing when she lost a patient, Mike could safely ignore that particular lecture. Until it was his turn to give it to her, of course.

He stayed up, waiting for Lizzie to be finished at the morgue. She'd be tired, but he'd promised her an explanation and she'd wake him up to get it if he wasn't waiting. He reviewed the deaths in his mind, trying to see them without emotion, trying to think like Dean and Sam might. It didn't help. He didn't know enough. A deliberate choice he'd never regretted until now.

He heard Lizzie's key in the door.

He cleared his mind as he listened to her put away her coat and walk down the hall towards him.

She stopped in the doorway, looking weary. "You should be in bed," she scolded while giving him a fond kiss. Her hair was damp, she smelled of soap, and he knew she'd cleaned up at the county hospital. He appreciated her not coming home smelling like dead bodies.

"Soon. Now that you're here," he responded. "I promised you an explanation."

She paused. She'd actually forgotten. It meant she was more tired than she could handle. Mike clenched his jaw against saying anything.

"Yeah, you did." She blinked. "Is it long?"

Mike wiggled his hand. "Complicated. Maybe unbelievable."

"I can believe six impossible things before breakfast," she replied.

"Well, you might as well tell me, since you've teased my curiosity awake."

"It's about my parents." Mike shifted nervously in his chair. "About how they died."

Lizzie's smile slipped away. "Ah."

Mike had told Lizzie some of his history—the important bits, anyway. Second son; mother killed in a car accident when he was twelve, father caught in a house-fire at a long-abandoned farm when he was seventeen. Estranged brother, now deceased.

Lizzie narrowed her eyes in thought. "Why was your dad at the house?"

He smiled. Straight to the point—that was his Lizzie.

"He was fighting a poltergeist and something went wrong."

"A poltergeist." Lizzie's voice was level, controlled.

"A poltergeist," he confirmed. "My parents… They hunted supernatural things: ghosts, ghouls, chupacabras. Poltergeists. They met on a hunt, actually. They acted like it was the most romantic thing in the world, saving each other from a witch."

"Witches," Lizzie commented blankly. "Okay."

"Dad got into it because of his sister—the way she died," Mike went on. "He came into the room and there was this… thing looming over her. He said he could see it pulling something out of her—her soul, he thought. He ran to get his parents, but by the time they returned, the thing was gone and his sister was in a coma."

"Did she recover?" Lizzie's voice wasn't hopeful, which was good, because Mike had to shake his head.

"Neither did the other nine kids in town," he said.

Lizzie looked shocked. "_Nine?_"

"Nine kids dropped into comas—no reason, nothing they could diagnose." Mike nodded. "He tried to tell them—his parent—what he'd seen. Explain that it wasn't an illness or an infection, that it was a monster, but they didn't believe him."

"No, they wouldn't. We're trained not to look outside of science." Lizzie said softly, thinking of something else. "So your dad told them it was something supernatural?"

"Yeah. They gave him a sedative and an appointment with a shrink. After that, he kept his opinions to himself, but he never forgot." His fingers were tapping against the countertop. He forced them to stop. "When he got older he started hunting. He'd lost the creature that had killed his sister, but he found other things," Mike continued. "Mom's best friend was killed by a werewolf while they were walking home from a school dance. Neither of their parents believed them when they said ghosts were real."

Lizzie made a neutral noise.

Mike looked at his smart, shrewd wife, and the proverbial light bulb went off in his head. "They didn't believe, but you do."

Lizzie's head jerked up, eyes wide. Mike didn't say anything; he just watched patiently. When she started chewing her lip—a sign of internal debate—he got up and put the kettle on for her favorite herbal tea. It even had time to boil before she finally sighed, and plopped herself down on the other chair.

"You never asked why I left Chicago," she said.

"You needed a change," Mike quoted, handing her the tea.

She coughed out a sour laugh. "I needed a change, yeah, but I wasn't looking for it. Why would I? I was second in command of the trauma department. I was managing a budget of millions, and my decisions affected _thousands_. I was important. And the money I was making…" Her voice faded; her gaze grew distant looking at what had been.

"What happened?" Mike asked quietly.

It took Lizzie a while to answer. She held the tea as if it was the only thing keeping her warm. Mike longed to hold her, to comfort her with his physical presence, but that wasn't how his Lizzie worked. Instead, he grabbed a couple muffins from the bread box and set them down between them. She'd eat one if she thought he was going to nibble.

He drank his own tea and pulled a muffin apart, not eating any of it.

"About nine years ago, I saw a young girl fall from a seven-story building," she said into the quiet. "Blood everywhere, with that liquid sprawl fall victims sometimes get. As if every bone was shattered."

Mike nodded. They didn't have buildings that tall here, but he'd seen it as a teenager on hunts with his family.

"I dialed 9-1-1, of course, but she got up. She gave herself a little shake and then she was strutting down the street as if even the thought of being injured was laughable." Lizzie gave another sour laugh. "Try explaining that one to the cops, especially after a couple drinks. It got back to the hospital, to my bosses, and suddenly, I'm on 'administrative leave'."

Mike leaned forward, placing his large, thick hand over Lizzie's. "I'm sorry, honey."

Lizzie didn't hear him or didn't care. "I hated it. I knew what I'd seen, and just because I'd had a couple drinks."

"How many were 'a couple'?"

Lizzie's lips lifted in self-mockery. "I honestly don't know. I know my blood alcohol was 1.2 and I felt absolutely steady."

It was a bad sign, Mike knew. It meant she'd been used to having lots of booze in her system on a regular basis.

They were going to fire me." She shrugged, her shoulders tight, angry. "It wouldn't have only been my job, but maybe my license as well, so I ran here—the first posting I saw when I started looking. I figured I should get out while I was still allowed to practice." She stared down at his hand still holding hers. She placed her free hand, warm from the tea, over his. "And I met you, so at least I got a happy ending out of it."

"I'm glad you think that, Lizzie," Mike said, lowering his head so his red cheeks couldn't be seen.

"Of course I think that. Idiot," she said with a smile in her voice.

Mike raised their joined hands so he could drop a kiss on her fingers.

She took back her hand, still smiling, and sipped her tea. "So was it a monster? The girl who got up," she asked. "Was she a ghost, or a drunken hallucination?"

He took back her hand. "Whatever it was, I might have to give her a thank you for bringing you to me." Mike paused. "I'd rather avoid her, though. Just in case."

It made Lizzie smile. "Probably a good idea for an elected police Sheriff to not acknowledge something like that."

Mike smiled with her. "That's a fact." He nudged the muffins closer to her. A subtle hint that was rewarded when she started nibbling on the pieces. Mike buried his look of satisfaction in his tea cup. When he looked up, Lizzie was staring at him, assessing and thinking.

"What?"

"Is that why you're letting those two bullshit artists run around calling themselves FBI?"

Mike lifted an eyebrow.

"You think something supernatural is causing these deaths," she clarified, "but you can't _say_ that because it'd be all over town before you closed your mouth."

Mike put his tea back down, sighing heavily. "I took my eyes off Brogan for less than a minute," he explained. "When I turned around, his belly was swollen enough to rival an eight-months-pregnant woman. With twins. Nothing natural could've caused that."

"And the two fake agents…?"

"Are hunters. Like my parents were. And my brother was."

"You think they'll figure out what it is?"

Mike nodded. "Likely. From what I overheard, one of them's been doing this for most of his life."

"Why, Sheriff Hardy, I'm shocked! A man of the law eavesdropping on private citizens." Lizzie grinned.

"On a suspicious character, you mean," Mike corrected. "Besides, since the PATRIOT Act, seems everybody's doing it."

Lizzie laughed out loud. "True enough." She tossed the last of the muffin in her mouth before holding out her hand imperiously. "Take me to bed, Sheriff. Let's go bump in the night."

Mike smiled. "Yes, ma'am."

.o0o.

After, when they lazed in the after-glow, Lizzie asked the question Mike had expected earlier.

"Do you think they'll stop it—whatever it is—before someone else dies?"

Mike's silence was all the answer she needed.

.o0o.

The next morning, Mike waited for the Tassimo machine to fill his coffee cup. With deadly intensity, he watched the level rise while mourning the loss of his youthful resilience.

He'd gotten up early to review yesterday's case notes—trying to fit all the cases' details in with each other. He'd looked at the photos, re-read the coroner's reports. He'd even drawn lines on the county map, which told him only what he'd already known: the deaths were getting closer to town,

He still had no clue what kind of creature was causing them.

He tried to remember everything he'd heard about witches. It had been a long time, granted, but he figured it wouldn't hurt to take a trip out to the roadhouse to search for a hex bag. He could call it a health inspection and use his deputies to tear the place apart. Shitty thing to do to Donny, but maybe his insurance would cover the repairs.

It would also give Donny a chance to get rid of the velvet-flocked wallpaper leftover from the 70s. Hell, Donny might actually thank him.

Out front, Maggie was at her desk, shuffling the day-to-day papers and filling in statistics for the state. Toby was already out on patrol. Soon, Mr. Carew would be in to complain about Mr. Palovski's dog digging through his garbage. Dougie Manning would bring in the scones his mother had set aside for them, and Pete Newhart would be in asking questions about the latest deaths for the paper. Mike hoped Sam and Dean arrived after Pete left. That meeting could be awkward, especially if Pete decided to investigate the "agents'" credentials. What the reporter lacked in brains, he made up for in thoroughness.

Mike couldn't risk it.

"Maggie," he said as he popped his head into the bullpen. "Has Pete–"

"Was waiting on the doorstep," she replied.

He waited for the rest. The coffee machine behind him gave one last burble. It was quiet.

He caved. "And?"

"I told him you were busy with follow-up this morning, but you'd make some time for him this afternoon." Maggie finally looked up. "Don't make me a liar."

Mike smiled at his second-in-command. "I won't."

She nodded, and went back to entering statistics into the county's crime-tracking system. Mike went back to his freshly brewed coffee.

He'd barely managed to get one swallow down when Dean and Sam arrived moments ahead of Mr. Carew. Sam even held the door open for the septuagenarian.

"Sheriff!" Mr. Carew barked. With a sigh, Mike stepped forward. "You need to arrest Palovski and take away his dog! It's a _menace_! And it's his fault! No business owning a dog if he can't train it properly."

"Rex died two years ago, Tom. Remember?" Mike said gently. Mr. Carew paused, confused. "Maggie here will take down the details and we'll see if maybe there's a coyote hanging about." Truth was it was a family of raccoons Mr. Carew had first fed then forgot about. They'd already caught and relocated the family twice, but it always came back. Next complaint from a neighbor and they'd have to shoot them.

He jerked his chin at the two hunters, and they obediently slipped into the back area. Mike lifted his cup in offer. Sam shook his head. Dean held up a cardboard cup. Amenities over, Mike led the way to the small conference room he'd set up as an "incident room." He'd even put pins in a map.

"So what did you boys find out?"

Sam shrugged. "Not much. We talked to some people at the truck stop: workers, regulars, resident transients–"

"How is that even a thing?" Dean griped, rubbing his shirt where he'd probably spilled coffee.

"And, although the manager had a fatal heart attack–" Sam continued, ignoring his partner. "Nobody else has… well, fallen victim to an unexpectedly virulent STD. Not that they knew of, at least."

"Not that they didn't have lots to tell us on each other's sexual habits—_too _friggin'_ much_ actually." Dean said, looking very unhappy.

"The thing is, from what the waitress said Beth could've… You know, contracted the disease anytime in the last couple years. The waitress called her a 'bunk bunny'?"

Mike nodded sadly. "Women who trade rides for sex," he explained. "She used to hitch rides to Chicago and Milwaukee. Anyplace that wasn't here."

Mike stared down into his coffee and wondered when it would stop hurting. "So what happened?' Mike asked. "Why now?"

"Exactly!" Dean said. "It's like it was something was activated. But we don't know what, and we don't know how." Nothing in Dean's voice said they'd figured it out. Mike held in his sigh—after all, it wasn't like he was expecting anything else.

Dean scratched at his chest, pressing hard. Mike realized the hunter had been scratching almost constantly since his arrival.

"You got a rash?" Mike asked him.

Dean looked down at his busy hand. With an embarrassed look, he put it down.

Sam, however, laughed. "Just FYI, that plant is definitely toxic." His voice was half sympathetic, and half planning to tease his partner unmercifully about it.

Dean made a face. "I'm itchy _everywhere_. Why do they even plant those things?"

"Most likely, someone thought it looked pretty," Mike replied. "It's not native to the county, I know that much.

"It's like kudzu down south," Sam added. "Or that fish in the Mississippi—it's taking over."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Great. I feel much better knowing there's a logical reason for my pain."

Sam smiled. "We'll get you some chamomile tea. You can take a bath in it later."

"Oatmeal works," Mike offered.

"Dean hates oatmeal," Sam said. He slapped Dean's busy hand away from his chest.

Dean gave his partner a betrayed look and took a drink of his coffee.

"How'd you get it on your chest?" Mike asked. "I don't remember you rolling around in it."

Dean grimaced. "I dunno, man. We were talking to some people who live in campers next to the restaurant?" Mike nodded. Living rough at the stop was cheaper than living in town. Dean shrugged. "We must've cut through some."

Mike shook his head. "That's a hell of a weed," he said. "For it to have spread the way it has." He pictured the hassle ahead of him: reporting it to the Department of Agriculture so they could send someone to determine what it was and what they could do about it. Fielding questions from the city and county councils, _and_ concerned citizens' groups—_those_ were always fun.

"That's it!" Sam said, suddenly standing straight.

Lack of sleep was Mike's explanation for why he jumped in surprise at Sam's exclamation.

"What's 'it'?" Dean asked with a frown. He was scratching again—this time at his thigh.

Mike watched Sam's gaze bounce first to Mike, then to Mike's badge before shifting over to his partner, so it didn't surprise Mike when Sam said, "Nothing," and dragged Dean out of the conference room.

Mike considered following them, trying to eavesdrop. He very seriously considered it—he even took a couple steps into the bullpen. Then Maggie glanced up in curiosity, and Mike realized if he followed he'd have to explain it to Maggie, which meant _lying_ to Maggie, and that was something Mike avoided because it never ended well.

He gave her a nod, lifted the cup he still had in his hand, and headed into the break room. It wasn't a lie—he _did_ need more coffee…

In the conference room, he sat down and looked at the board, trying to see what Sam had figured out.

Wilby collapsed at his show home. Brogan died on the highway. Beth died in the hospital. Bill, the lying fisherman, died at the roadhouse, followed by Joesy.

Except for Beth, they all died out of town. Near farmers' fields that were covered in fertilizers and pesticides, or on Wilby's contaminated airstrip.

Beth spent lots of time at the truck stop which meant diesel fumes and engine additives.

Mike was starting to think that maybe it was time to find out what brands of chemicals they all used and what ingredients they had in common, when Maggie popped her head in. She looked grim and Mike braced himself.

"There's been another one."

.o0o.

The body at the Sleep-Eez motel was very familiar. Unfortunately.

While they waited for Lizzie to arrive, Mike stood in the doorway staring down at Councilor Lester Mankowitz who was on the bed naked and very dead.

He was naked in a by-the-hour, no-tell-motel room rented by Mariah Tork who wasn't his wife. In fact, Mariah wasn't anyone's wife, and she also charged by the hour.

Not good.

Once this got out, there was no way the other deaths wouldn't be brought up, and that meant the involvement of state police or even the feds—the _real_ ones.

Mike stepped out of the room, thinking how much he hated ticking clocks.

He walked to the end of the one-story building. It was in remarkably good shape. Mostly because its diner was better than the one at the truck stop, and there were always a dozen semis clogging up the service road and grabbing a bite and a nap. Mike had had to call Kelly in to keep the nosey truckers away from the crime scene. Kelly was five and a half foot of tank. A former Marine, she wasn't intimidated by anyone other than Maggie. No one was opening the motel room door or sneaking a peek through the windows while she was on duty.

At a grassy patch next to a utility shed, the motel had optimistically put out patio tables. Mariah, a big-haired, well-endowed woman in her mid-thirties, was sitting at one with Toby. That was fine, but the dark, mousy, Janine Hale was also there, and that wasn't fine. Janine could keep secrets—Lord, could she ever! But once the scandal broke then Janine gloried in knowing all the details. And she'd spread them around the jury pool like germs in a toilet.

She also reminded Mike of a ghoul his family had once put down. It wasn't a happy memory since he'd ended the hunt by puking up all of the previous week's meals and Josh had never stopped teasing him about it. His father had just looked disappointed. So, no. It wasn't a happy memory.

He kept his eyes on Mariah as he took off his hat. "Ladies."

Mariah waved her cigarette—one of several she'd had since she'd called if the number of butts on the ground around her was anything to go by. Janine sat up in eager anticipation.

"Mind telling me what happened, Mariah?"

"Well," Janine said. "Lester–"

Mike held up his hand to stop her. "I asked Mariah since she was there at the time. You know what, Janine?" he continued, turning to his deputy. "We should take your statements separately, so there's no overlap. Toby here'll take you to the station, and get it from you."

Toby swallowed, but dutifully indicated his crawler. "Ma'am."

Janine looked at him like a dog eyeing a steak. Then she looked at Mariah. Mike could see her weighing which one would give her the best gossip.

"Off you go, Janine," Mike put more order and less suggestion in his tone.

With one last fake-sympathetic pat to Mariah's hand, Janine left with Toby.

Mariah blew out some smoke. "Thanks for that," she said. "If I hadn't've been so freaked out, I wouldn't've shouted, and she'd've never known. So I'll apologize for that up front." Her voice had a rasp that came from too many cigarettes for far too long.

"No worries, Mariah," Mike said. "You're allowed to panic when somebody dies next to you."

"You mean, 'on top of me'," she corrected with a lilt of dark humor.

"Yeah."

She shrugged, puffing on her cigarette. " 'S not the worst thing to happen to me."

Mike didn't think there was a good response to that, so he pulled out his notebook and pen. "What did happen?"

"Lester called me last night. Arranged to meet here."

"Did he do that often?"

Mariah shrugged. "Usually just once a month, but he'd been upset about something, so he was calling me more'n usual. This was the third time." It was only the second week of September.

"Why the change?" Mike asked.

Again, Mariah shrugged.

"Did you ask him about it?"

"I don't ask nobody about nothing. They talk, though—usually saying the exact opposite of what's true." Mariah laughed. "I don't know how many men've told me they don't cheat on their wives. Or've never paid for sex before. Or never had sex without a condom…" Mariah's lip curled up in a slow smile, and Mike could understand why men paid to be with her.

Mariah stopped to light another cigarette. Mike resisted the urge to say something about it.

"So what did Lester talk about that you didn't ask for?" he asked instead.

"Everything he considered wrong with his marriage and his life. All lies, of course." She laughed. `You know, he always told me Annie was a ball-breaking bitch, and that's why he… needed my services?"

Mike blinked in shock.

Mariah chuckled at his expression. "I know, right? _You've_ met Annie—that girl wouldn't say 'boo' to a ghost."

"She adores him," Mike said.

"Yup," Mariah agreed. "Now, the _mother-in-law_… "

It was Mike's turn to laugh. He'd met her, too, and Mariah's assessment was dead-on accurate.

"So he was under pressure at home, for whatever reason, and he called you to, um, work out the tension."

"When he came in, he was already sweaty and pale. And I swear he lost five pounds just getting his clothes off," Mariah said. "I suggested maybe he oughta visit a doctor, but he said no, of course. He never liked that the best GP in town was your wife. Afraid of the pillow talk."

"Lizzie doesn't tell me anything without a warrant," Mike said firmly.

Mariah nodded, accepting. "You know what I often find to be true, Sheriff? People expect everybody to be exactly like them. If they'll cheat on their spouse, they'll expect their spouse to be cheating on them. Same with lying, or skimming from the till."

"You think Lester spoke out of turn?" he asked.

"I think he spent a lot of money on my massages," she replied with a slow, inviting smile.

Yup, Mike thought. Definitely worth the money.

"Did he happen to give you any details?" Mike prodded.

"He was involved with that nasty developer," she said. "The one who died weird."

Mike looked up sharply. "Wilby? Built those houses out by Lavenda?"

She nodded and put out her cigarette. "That's the one. State regulators're going over the books, right? Well, Lester's name is all over the approvals. He swore he didn't do nothing illegal." She shrugged, and Mike knew she hadn't believed Lester.

It was interesting—very interesting, because maybe this was the common thread between the victims. Bill the Blowhard seemed like the type to be involved in shady land deals—he could've known Wilby. He already knew that Joesy, and now Lester, were connected to him. And Brogan might've done some shady work on the development. He'd've been paid under the table, but somebody would know.

Mike stopped. It wouldn't explain Beth.

"Am I going to have to go in to the station?" Mariah asked, breaking into Mike's thoughts.

"No, I don't see the need. It's not like you killed him," Mike replied. "Of course, I have to ask you to not leave town without contacting us first. In case we have more questions."

Mariah shrugged. "Ain't got any place to go outside our little burg, Sheriff."

Mike asked a couple 'just in case' questions—time of arrival, how long before symptoms became acute. Stuff which could be important later though Mike doubted it. He walked her to her sensible little sedan after making sure she was okay to drive.

He was waving her off when Lizzie arrived. She got out of the car, and gave a tired little stretch. The extra shifts at the hospital were starting to take a toll on his wife that he was unhappy about. Not that he'd ever say that. Lizzie set her own limits, and Mike knew better than to question them so early.

He walked over to his wife, tipping his hat because he knew it would make her roll her eyes. "Doc."

She rolled her eyes. "Another one?"

Mike shrugged. "All indications are natural causes." No way was he prejudicing Lizzie's conclusions.

Lizzie gave him a skeptical look as she marched over to the motel room. Jenny gave them a nod and stepped aside. Lizzie pushed the door open, took one step inside and stopped in the doorway.

"Lester? The city counsellor?"

"Yup."

Lizzie drooped. "Well, shit."

"Yup," Mike agreed with a sigh.

She marched back to her car, ordering over her shoulder, "Call Pearson in."

Pearson was the county's forensics specialist. He'd been with Lizzie at the roadhouse, dressed in paper coveralls to protect the scene like they didn't do on _CSI: Miami_. Lizzie wouldn't normally call him in for a suspected heart attack, but councilors didn't usually die in seedy motels while having sex with a prostitute, either. At least, not in this county.

From her trunk, Lizzie pulled out a package of disposable coverings. She ripped open the plastic bag and pulled them on over her clothes. She held on to the little booties until she was back at the motel room door.

He leaned on the door frame, watching as she started taking pictures, documenting everything.

"You're blocking the light."

Mike pushed off from the frame. "Fine. I can tell when I'm not wanted."

"I'll get Cora to make you some cinnamon buns. That should bolster your ego." It was almost playful, but Lizzie's attention was on the scene, and not on what she was saying to her husband.

"I'll be outside if you need me."

Lizzie growled absently. Mike shook his head as he walked away—the focus that woman could bring to a case! It was somewhat scary, and completely sexy. It made his body forget he was forty-eight, and not eighteen.

His gait was a little stiff, and he figured he should head to the back of the motel until his body had settled down some. He found Lester's car tucked in at the end close to the bushes, far away from the bustle of the diner.

"Maggie," he said into his radio. "I'm gonna need the tow truck out here."

_"Gotcha. Where d'you want it taken to?"_

"Station's fine for now." In case Lester's death was more than a heart attack, he thought but didn't say.

Maggie acknowledged the order then continued in her usual no-nonsense way. "_By the way, boss, I got Reverend James to bring the wife in. I told her about Lester. I figured we shouldn't wait, since Toby brought Janine Hale in_"

It was good thinking, so Mike told her so. She brushed it off.

"_I've managed to keep them apart, but Janine's starting to talk about lawyers and civil rights" _she went on. "_Toby's on his way back to you. Once he's there, you can come back and deal with the family."_

Mike grimaced, but acknowledged that they were going to demand to speak to him anyway. Might as well get it done and over with. He signed off, and then stood staring at the pearl-silver Caddie Lester had bought only a couple months ago. When Mike had first seen it, he'd thought Lester had wheedled the money out of his wife. Now, however, Mariah's comments made him think that Lester might have used an alternate revenue stream.

Using the handkerchief he kept in a pouch on his belt, he checked the car's doors. They were locked, so he wandered around the vehicle, peering in the windows, hoping for the clue that would break this whole thing open, reveal the bad guy, save the world, the whole nine yards.

There was nothing, of course. Lester might've been a crook, but he was a small-town crook and not a nefarious super-villain.

Mike shifted to the other side and nearly tripped. He looked down, and saw that he'd snagged his pant-leg in some plant. He pulled his leg a bit, but the thing had a firm hold. He bent down to detangle it, sighing at the twinge in his back from too much sitting.

Inches from the dark-green leaves, he stopped, sudden realization catching his breath and making his heart thump—he knew this plant.

He straightened slowly, mind racing.

This was the same plant Dean had found the dead hare in. The same plant that surrounded the roadhouse, and had been in Wilby's backyard, and at the side of Highway 42, where Brogan died—which was the same highway that ran between the old airstrip and the roadhouse. The two hunters had found it at the truck stop, too, where Beth had spent too much of her time. It was the _only_ common element.

Mike looked down.

He was surrounded by it and it was deadly somehow.

Carefully—so very carefully—he stepped out from amongst the clingy vine.

What the hell was he going to do?

They couldn't burn the thing like he'd originally thought. Who knew what the smoke would contain. Or if it would even burn at all…

Damn it! He wished his brother Joshua was alive so he could talk to him about the two "agents". He would've known who Sam and Dean actually were, and if they were likely to know what it was? If yes, did they know how to handle It? After all, it was all over the county!

It was all over the county…

"Hey Maggie?" he said into his radio.

"_Yeah, boss?"_ Her voice was reassuringly steady.

"I need you to get some info from the county health authority, or the hospital. Whichever."

"_Uh, okay._"

"Recent spikes in illness or disease. Odd injuries even," he explained. "Have there been more cases than usual? Where the cases are located; are they centralized somewhere? Most importantly, where did they first show up?"

_"Jesus, Mike. That's gonna take me a while."_ Maggie's voice was filled with curiosity.

Mike ignored it. "Then you'd better get started. Get Kelly to help you if you need to."

_"It'd go faster if I could tell them why you want the info."_

Mike ignored that, too. "Just ask, Maggie. See what they say." He turned off his radio.

He crouched down over the vine. It wasn't shiny, and it wasn't one color. It was mottled like it was taking sun-dappled shadow with it. He sniffed and smelled dirt and decay, but it was hardly surprising considering he was right next to a large copse of trees.

He pulled out his pen so he could lift the leaves and get a better idea of the stem and root system, but it was too short, and he didn't want to touch it—he remembered Dean scratching his chest bloody from having touched the plant. He took out his handkerchief and wrapped the cloth around his hand and lifted the leaf.

Nothing unusual.

More mottled dark green on the underside of the leaves, slightly more grey than on top. Still looked like camouflage. Still looked like a plant.

He looked at how it ran along the ground—a thin branch that dropped every foot or so and sprouted leaves, and realized it was actually a vine. One long exterior root.

He reached in with his covered hand, got a good grip, and pulled.

The vine pulled out of the ground for a few feet. The anchor roots were shallow and small, and Mike briefly hoped it would all be that simple.

Then it started writhing and twisting, and Mike swore he heard some kind of subliminal shrieking seemed to reach out to him, wanting to pull him into its dark shadows. His stomach whirled and bile rose to the back of his throat. He scrambled backwards, an awkward crab-walk. Handkerchief forgotten, all he wanted to was get away as fast as he could. He'd backed up six feet before his brain got back online. Three more before it could convince the rest of him he was safe. …Ish.

Mike could hear the blood as it pounded through his brain, feel it in his throat…

He hated this! Hated _things_ jumping out at him.

Give him drug dealers and thieves any day. Those he at least recognized on sight as being dangerous.

Mike watched the exposed roots slip back into the ground. Leaves shifted and twitched along its length, like they were carrying a message back to its central 'brain'. Definitely alive, then. And aware. Maybe even plotting something… He swallowed, desperate to keep his stomach contents where they were supposed to be. Forget whatever evidence might be in Lester's car—Mike was getting out of there!

And he'd grab Lizzie and Kelly, too.

He was on the wrong side of the motel—the treeward side, where more of it grew—a thick, ground covering layer. To get back to his squad car he'd have to either walk the long way, keeping to the scraggly grass strip, or he'd have to step over the plant surrounding Lester's Caddy. He'd walked through it easily before he knew it was alive. Nothing stopping him from walking through it now. Not really.

Mike chose the long way.

.o0o.

Mike looked at his phone again.

He'd called both Dean and Sam, and ordered them to call him back _right away._

That had been nearly thirty minutes ago.

He was through waiting.

.o0o.

Mike knocked on the door with his Maglite. It was an unmistakable sound that demanded entry _right the fuck __now__._

He glared at Sam when the hunter opened the door. "You forgot how to return a phone call?" he said. Then he pushed his way past the big man using the force of his anger and fear.

Inside the double room, Dean was on the near bed rubbing frantically at his chest. There were socks on his hands but his T-shirt had little red spots on the chest, where Dean had broken skin. Whatever was in the plant, it was affecting the hunter hard.

Mike turned to stare at Sam who fidgeted. "That's from the plant?"

"Nothing we've done has stopped it itching," Sam explained frantically.

Mike snorted. "Hardly surprising since the plant isn't toxic: it's supernatural."

Now it was Dean and Sam's turn to stare at him.

"You know?"

With a sigh, Mike took off his hat. "My parents were hunters. My brother too," he said. "Plus, your badges are good, but I'm an action movie fan from way back."

Sam flushed. "The names were Dean's idea."

Dean looked at Sam and glared. "Nice. Throw me under the bus."

Beside him Sam stuck his hand out. "I'm Sam Winchester, and that's my brother, Dean."

"Winchester?" Mike asked, momentarily sidetracked. "Any relation to _John_ Winchester?"

"Our dad," Dean answered. "You knew him?"

_"_Not me," Mike said. "My brother worked with him a time or two."

"Joshua Hardy," Sam said out of nowhere. Mike nodded and Sam turned to his brother. "His name was in Dad's journal. I called him after… After you electrocuted yourself that time." Sam paused, cleared his throat. "He gave me Roy Le Grange's name."

Stunned, Dean's face went blank. "Seriously? The fake faith healer?" He turned to Mike. "That was your brother?"

"Small world," Mike said dismissively. He didn't want them to ask for an update on Joshua, since Mike didn't want to tell them something had torn Josh apart in his own home back in '08. "Anyway, there was another body. Local politician, married but spending time with a suspected prostitute. He died in their usual motel room, and guess what I found all around it?"

Dean's eyed narrowed. He shrugged, scratching at his chest.

"More of that damn plant," Mike said, when neither of them said anything. "And when I pulled some of it up, it tried to attack me. Tell me you know what it is."

Sam pulled in a large breath. "Not exactly," he said. "We know some things it's not, but there aren't that many plant creatures in lore or mythology."

"It's not some kind of pagan god who lives in plants?" Mike asked. "Like the spirit of the Green Man, or something."

Sam was already shaking his head. He walked over to an open laptop, and Mike followed. "I've checked all my sources, and nothing matches. I mean, why those people? And those types of deaths? What made those five people–"

"Six," Mike corrected.

_"_Six. What made those six people die so…"

"Weirdly," Dean finished.

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "And is the order significant?"

"We think it started at the airstrip, and grew out in a circle from there," Dean said.

Sam nodded, moving to a map taped to the wall and colored with pins and thread. He pointed to the central pin. "Wilby–" Followed a thread south. "Brogan–" Back to the center pin then east. "Beth." Back south. "The hunter and what's 'is name? Joesy."

"That's a great theory, but it doesn't make sense. If it started at the airstrip, and grew out from there then it should've hit Lavenda Township by now." Mike tapped the small's town's spot on the map. "Plus, Lester was here: south-west across a large corporate farm. They would've attacked that plant before it got three feet into the money crop."

Sam frowned at him. "So what's your theory?"

"I think it's following the highways." Mike wrapped his hands around his belt. There were nearly twenty pounds of weapons and gear on it, and its bulk was reassuringly familiar. "Aside from the towns, that's where the most people are."

"That makes sense," Sam said, tracing the line of the highway on the map.

"It started somewhere around here—" Mike's finger circled the truck stop. "And moved out." He splayed his hand out in a star.

"But the Connolly girl died third," Dean argued. He stood and moved to stand beside his brother in front of the map. Sam batted at his brother's idly scratching fingers.

"Wilby lived between the truck stop and the airstrip, maybe twenty minutes away."

"So he would've been exposed at home and at work," Sam mused.

Mike nodded. "Maybe proximity's a factor and well as length of exposure."

"So because Beth only occasionally hung out at the truck stop, she would've been exposed earlier, maybe, but less intensely," Mike said.

"It's plausible," Sam agreed.

"That doesn't explain the fisherman tourist," Dean countered. "He was in a freaking building, eating lunch."

"It could be getting stronger," Sam suggested. "As it's fed more."

Even Dean had to acknowledge it was possible. They looked at the map. "That would make the truck stop ground zero," Dean said.

"The truck stop does have a nasty history," Mike agreed.

"Site of an Indian massacre in the 1880s," Sam said, pulling a sheet from a pile of papers. "The mass grave was dug up when they built the truck stop fifteen years ago. Local tribal leaders asked for it to be made a protected site, but that didn't happen, obviously. The bones were dug up, documented, and shipped to the nearest reservation for reburial."

Mike's shoulders tightened unconsciously. He knew what came next.

"Since then, the bodies of three women were discovered in the woods surrounding it. Victims of a serial killer," Dean continued oblivious to Mike's discomfort.

"Clifford Thomas Hayle was filmed dumping victim number four," Sam continued, pulling another sheet out. "He was surrounded by police, but refused to give up. He was shot and killed–"

"By me," Mike said. His lungs were tight. His mouth was dry. "I shot him."

"He was pronounced Dead On Scene," Sam finished quietly. "He bled out before paramedics arrived."

"He was guilty," Mike stated. "Eleven girls from all across the country."

There was a moment of silence, whether out of respect for the dead girls, or for Mike's pain, Mike wasn't sure, didn't care. Personally, he wasn't looking at anything in particular—wasn't focusing on anything. He couldn't. He'd been a hunter, but Hayle had been human. A monster, sure, but human. Mike's only human kill.

Sam's voice broke the silence. "He had pictures in his sleeper cab. He'd written 'LYING SLUT' on all of them."

"They were like Beth," Mike said with a sad sigh. "Using sex to escape from home.

"So, maybe, she was actually his _twelfth_ victim," Dean said softly. "She was his type."

Sam turned around. "But the others weren't."

"Brogan was definitely a lying slut," Mike said. "Him and Loreen were barely back from the honeymoon before he was caught in a back room with one of his co-workers."

"Yeah, but he wasn't _female_," Sam pointed out.

"We're talking about a deranged, serial killing ghost that's using a plant as his highway," Dean argued. "I'm thinking Hayle's awareness of gender might be a little fuzzy."

Mike finally turned to look at the hunter brothers directly. "You seriously think Hayle's doing this?"

Sam looked at Dean. Dean looked at Sam. Sam looked at Mike and shrugged. "Yeah. That's what we're thinking. And if that's the case, then all we need to do is find the body." The hunter sounded happy at having a solid option. The two of them discussed how they'd find Hayle's grave—where to search, how long it would take. Mike stayed quiet, uncertain about what to do next. He wasn't a hunter anymore. He was a cop—sworn to uphold the laws.

On the other hand: grave desecration versus another death…

"We sent Hayle's body to his grandmother," Mike announced, and the hunters perked up. "I think she had him buried."

Mike gave them the name of the town four states over, a ten-hour drive away. He didn't know the cemetery, so the Winchesters would have to look that up, then find Hayle's grave, dig it up, and burn the bones. By the time they got back, they should know if it worked.

As he watched them pull out of the motel parking lot, Mike knew it was going to be a long day's wait.

.o0o.

Mike closed the motel where Lester died using possible health code violations (not a lie—the place was a dump). He even managed to get the diner next door shut, because vermin in one place would certainly migrate to another—food-filled—place so close. He wished he could do the same at the truck stop but there was no way he could justify it. Instead, he drove the county's side roads, tracking the ivy's presence. It confirmed their theory that it grew only where there were people. Anyplace there was more than a half mile between houses, the ivy was turning grey and dying.

It was completely useless information.

Unless he could get the county or the state to call for an evacuation, which wasn't likely at all.

No, the only hope they had was Sam and Dean in a distant graveyard, and all he could do was hope it worked.

And that they didn't get caught digging up the coffin of Clifford Thomas Hayle.

He returned to the station feeling discouraged.

"I got those stats you wanted," Maggie said before he'd even removed his hat. "Also, we've had seven complaints about you shutting down the diner, and a dozen inquiries about Lester's death, including one of the big news outlets from Minneapolis."

"Wonderful."

"And Doc Cole is here," Maggie's small smile was evil.

Mike took a breath. "Is the coffee fresh?"

"As ordered, boss."

Mike got himself a cup, took one bracing drink, and then went to face his wife.

She was in the conference room, looking at the murder board.

"You know, except for Beth, all the victims were… rather horrible people," she said as a greeting.

"Liars, cheats, and scammers," Mike agreed.

She turned to face him, piercing him with her gaze. "You know what's causing it. That's why you pulled me out of Lester's hotel room."

"We think so."

"We?"

Ah, damn. "I went and talked to Dean and Sam," he said. "Laid all the information out."

"And they know how to stop it."

"We hope so."

Lizzie turned to him. "You don't know?"

"It's not an exact science," Mike protested.

Lizzie hummed disapprovingly. "So what are they doing?" When Mike hesitated to respond, Lizzie narrowed her eyes at him. "You do know what they're doing."

He raised his free hand. "Yes, I know. But I'm not going to tell you. What they're doing… well, it's not legal, so it's better you don't know."

Lizzie's mouth opened to protest. Then she frowned in thought. Mike took another drink and let her think.

"When will you know if it worked?" she asked.

Mike shrugged. "Fourteen hours, maybe?"

She wrapped herself around his free arm. "Grab the cards then. We've got a long night ahead of us."

.o0o.

Mike nixed strip poker since they were at the station, so they played for household chores. He was off garbage duty for a month when Dean finally checked in. Before they'd even closed the doors on Mike's prowler, Hilde, the night-time dispatcher, called him to report another death.

.o0o.

Mike waited for the Winchesters at their motel. He'd dropped Lizzie at the small county hospital so she could help with a sudden outbreak of botulism. One death, but there were several more barely hanging on.

Mike had stopped in long enough to confirm all the victims had come from the same development, east and slightly north of the motel where Lester had died. Mike knew the ivy had infested the area, so either the "botulism" outbreak was a residual effect, or it hadn't been Hayle's ghost, after all. On his way to the motel, Mike had stopped a couple times and checked the ivy where it grew close to the road. It didn't look any different.

He heard the Impala's growl long before he saw the big vehicle. He'd already told the hunters the news, so there was no need to rush. Still, it was hard not to run over and shake them in anger.

He rested his hands on his belt as he waited for them to park and climb out, because he wasn't an asshole. It wasn't the hunters' fault their theory hadn't been correct.

Dean talked before he'd finished exiting his car. "We stopped along the way. Nothing. The stupid weed's still growing."

"Yup," Mike agreed. "I didn't notice any changes either."

"How're the people at the hospital doing?" Sam asked. He clutched his laptop to his chest, as if he'd been researching in the car as they drove.

"Nobody else has died," Mike answered.

"I don't understand," Sam said. "Everything pointed at it being a ghost."

"It could still be a ghost," Dean said impatiently. "Just possessing the plant."

"Possession doesn't work like that!" Sam's response was cutting. Mike got the idea the brothers had been arguing the idea since Mike had called and let them know about the latest fatality.

"How _does_ it work?" Mike asked, both from a desire to cut the argument short and a desire to know.

Dean shot a look at Sam, shutting the larger man's mouth before he could get a word out. "Possession is simple. A ghost or a spirit or a demon takes over a living host," Dean explained. "It lives on, even if the original body is destroyed."

"But you already tried burning Hayle's bones," Mike said, asking for clarification.

"If it's ghost possession, we have to draw the ghost out _then_ get rid of it," Sam explained.

He tried to remember if his parents or his brother had ever come across something like this. He couldn't. He'd spent too much of his live actively avoiding hunting and its lore.

Mike looked closely him. "But you don't think this is ghost possession."

Sam's shoulders fell.

"In fact, you have no idea," Mike summed up. Mike looked at the hunters. Neither them looked at Mike. Instead, Dean opened the trunk of the Impala and grabbed a couple duffle bags, and Sam opened the door to their hotel room. Productive avoidance at its finest.

Tiredly, Mike took off his hat and rubbed his scalp. He allowed himself the vague hope that the increased blood flow would help his thinking. Plus, he needed to let Sam and Dean hide the things Mike didn't need to know about, things he'd have to arrest them for.

Unfortunately, what he wanted to do was go in there and shout at them and maybe punch something. Or someone. Anything, if it would force a solution from one of them.

He also wanted to be the one to have the brilliant revelation that solved the puzzle and saved the day. To feel a hunter's pride that he'd done something so few could… or would, even if the supernatural was known by everyone. It was like being part of a superhero club, and it had been the only part of being a hunter Mike had enjoyed.

He pushed the temptation away—he wasn't a hunter anymore. Instead, he paced outside the room, slapped his hat against his thigh, and thought back over everything he knew.

When he figured he'd given them enough time to settle, Mike marched into the room. "The plant has some kind of intelligence, whether it's a spirit or something else," he declared. "When I pulled it up, it attacked me. When it fell back to the ground, it dug itself in. What can do that?" He glared at brothers.

The Winchesters gave him a grim look, but their jaws firmed and determination filled their eyes.

"I'll do more research," Sam offered. He looked at Dean. "You should try Cas again. He'd probably know."

"He's not answering, man," Dean responded. He sounded frustrated and bitter, but also fond and worried. A complex mix of emotions suitable for a family member or other loved one. Mike almost wondered who Cas was to the brothers, before deciding it was irrelevant.

"What can I do to help?" Mike asked.

"Uh," Sam gave a small shrug. "History. We need a more detailed history of the area."

Dean nodded. "Anything evil or sick that happened."

"Or even weird," Sam added.

Mike's mind was simultaneously blank and overwhelmed. This was a small area. He knew lots of the sick and weird things that went on in his county, but he didn't think the Winchesters needed to know that the owners of the local grocery liked to dress up in leather and take turns tying each other up, or that local Harry Potter fans tried to do magic after the last movie was released. They were self-proclaimed Slytherins, too.

Wait…

"A bunch of wannabe black arts students tried to cast a spell," Mike said. Dean and Sam focused on him with scary intensity. "They set a bit of grazing land on fire, and destroyed a few trees and a run-down feed shed. No one thought anything of it."

"What kind of spell?" Sam asked.

"Something they'd cobbled together from popular fiction and Wikipedia," Mike said with a tight shrug. "It wasn't real magic." He didn't need the Winchester's exchanged look of disbelief to know he might have made a very serious mistake. Magic, even cobbled together and performed with more hope than power, wasn't something to be dismissed. He was the son and brother of hunters. He should've known. Hell, he had known. He just hadn't wanted to acknowledge it.

Sam was relentless. "What did they want?"

"Lucius Malfoy," Mike replied wearily. "Or the actors who played them. I don't think they knew what they were asking for."

Dean sat up. "Lucius Malfoy was a bad dude. He followed Voldemort."

Sam stared at his brother, mouth open.

Dean rolled his eyes. "The point is they were calling forth bad mojo without any direction, or focus. So even if they didn't get Jason Isaacs–"

"Dude! How do you _know _that?" Sam hadn't stopped staring.

Dean ignored him. "Even if they didn't get an evil wizard, maybe they brought up some other evil thing?"

"Like an evil possessed plant?" Mike asked.

"Yahtzee!" Dean leaned back with a proud smile.

Mike looked at Sam. The hunter didn't look skeptical, so that told Mike it was possible.

"How do we get rid of it? Can we burn it?" he asked before remembering it was growing over nearly a quarter of the county.

"Burning it could just release it to find a new host," Dean said.

"If it's a demon, we could exorcise it," Sam suggested.

It was Dean's turn to stare at his brother. "Just walk along the highway muttering Latin?" he scoffed.

"It could work. We'd just need to trap it somehow, send it back to Hell," Sam argued.

"That's_if _it's a demon, which isn't likely" Dean pointed out.

Sam shrugged, conceding the point. "Ghost possession, then. Either way, we'll need salt."

It was as if Mike had disappeared, no longer important to their plans. There was tension between the brothers, but they were a team familiar with each other. Any comment Mike made now would interrupt the flow of ideas, so Mike kept his mouth shut and let the discussion flow over him: seals versus locks, and whether they should talk to Kevin, and if holy water could be mixed with weed-killer—it held a never-forgotten, but long-ignored familiarity.

Suddenly, fiercely, Mike missed his brother. Like someone had reached a hand into his lungs and yanked.

Damn hunting, anyway!

"Okay, this is what we're going to do," Sam said and jerked Mike out of his melancholy. "We find the original plant where the root is. That'll be the starting point. We create a circle of protection. Then we'll perform the a couple rituals—one for ghosts, one for demons. One of them's got to work, so that should be that."

"And if it isn't?" Mike asked.

The Winchesters didn't have an answer.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three:**

The site of the semi-failed ritual was a field behind the truck stop. The field was part of a ranch that had folded six years before and had been on the market ever since. It's just as well, Mike thought, at least no one had eaten any beef that had grazed on the killer ivy.

They parked on an overgrown tractor path on the north side of the lot, rather than at the truck stop. It was closer to the site and it gave them more privacy. Not perfect privacy, Mike knew. Too many squatters and Lot Lizards in the treed area between the two properties for them to have total privacy. However, most of the Lizards' attention would be focused on the trucks—looking for a ride, looking for customers, looking for stuff to steal.

Mike took the time to put on the rubber boots he kept in his trunk. Part of him wanted to laugh as Dean and Sam struggled to walk in the muddy, bumpy field. They had boots on, but they were more suitable for hiking in forests than farmer's fields, but a large part of him wished they'd trip over the ruts and break something. At least it would delay this crazy mission.

But what was the point of delay, he knew? They'd still have to do this. Still have to fight something they didn't understand, and had no idea the full extent of what it would do to defend itself. _This _was why he'd given up hunting. Because he wasn't a superhero, and being in the secret club wouldn't stop him getting killed if he made a bad decision. Worse, other people could die if he didn't get it right.

He shook it off. It was just a plant. It couldn't jump out at them. It couldn't teleport. It was just a plant. They could do this.

They ran into one of the branches running north first. The leaves were curled and sickly, perhaps even dying since there were fewer people out the way it was headed. They took care not to get close, even as they used it to guide them to the main stem. They followed the branch.

They follow the tendrils through the burnt trees. Some of the trees had survived the grass fire caused by the ritual, some had not. The scarred trunks, combined with a feed-barn's black skeleton, gave the whole area a suitably spooky look. No grass or bush grew between the trees. There was absolute quiet—no birds, no insects, no life of any kind. Now he was aware of it, Mike could see how _wrong _the area was.

He wanted to kick himself for not checking sooner. Coming from a family of hunters he should've known the ritual—stupid and amateurish as it had been—would leave some kind of residue and residues attract nasty things. He should've thought of it, but he hadn't. Because he wasn't a hunter anymore.

The possessed plant was a shocking green next to the charcoal black of the rest of the area. It was also, obviously, "plant zero". Dozens of thick tendrils, easily five times the size of the ones they'd walked over, ran towards the truck stop and south towards town.

"Truckers must taste good," Dean commented.

"Actually," Mike said. "It's probably the Lot Lizards in the trees over there. I'm going to have to get all my deputies together and organize a search for unreported bodies." Mike said it to shut-up the hunter, but once it was out there he realized it was true. The people squatting around the truck stop wouldn't report a body—they'd just move their blankets.

"Where were Hayle's victims found?" Sam asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

Mike pointed to a line of bushes nearly a mile to the south of them. "People heard 'bushes' and thought we meant 'trees'."

"Just as well," Sam said and they all nodded their heads. If this _had _been where Hayle had dumped his victims, then the amateur witches could've brought up something so much worse than an evil plant. Mike looked at it—so very healthy, and very _large_.

They stopped by one particularly large branch and stared at it. "What if this doesn't work?" Mike asked again. "How do we tell if it's possessed? And by what?"

"Umm," Sam hesitated. "Christo?"

A couple of the closest leaves shivered, but that could've been wind. If there'd been any wind…

Dean pulled a flask out of his pocket. "Holy water," he said. He unscrewed the cap, and splashed the contents on the plant around them.

The leaves shook, definitely not the wind, but other than that, nothing.

They looked at each other. Mike said it, since someone had to state the obvious, "So, not demon possession."

"Doesn't look like it," Dean said.

"Not a normal demon, anyway," Sam qualified it.

Dean shrugged, because it made no difference. "So. Plan B?"

"We have a Plan B?" Sam asked.

"How about a broadleaf weed killer," Mike suggested.

Dean gave him a grin, and even Sam chuckled. "It's still a good idea to cut the main branches heading towards town," Sam said. "Cutting access to its food supply should weaken it."

"Then we can _burn _the fucker," Dean concluded. He winked at Mike and Mike had to smile back.

"How do you plan to cut the branches?" Mike asked. The Winchesters looked at each other and smirked.

Without a word, they walked back to their car. Mike followed. The plant wasn't going anywhere, and he really didn't want to stay alone with it.

He was hoping for some special weapon or tool, but all they brought out were a couple hatchets: one steel, and one Mike thought was iron. Good against the fae, he remembered, but lousy at keeping an edge.

"We should probably try this on one of the thinner trunks," Sam suggested.

"I'm down with that." Dean said.

Before they closed the trunk of their late-60s Chevy, Sam brought out a jerry-can of gasoline and a large bag of rock salt—"Just in case". Mike grabbed the salt and carried it back to the site. In unspoken agreement, they decided to test the hatchets on the branch they'd followed before—the one that was unhealthy and thin.

Dean lifted the dark-colored iron hatchet, giving it a light toss to test its weight. He gave them a grin. "Be ready to pull me out." He stood over a branch, wrist-thick, and swung. It cut through cleanly.

The response was instantaneous, and terrifying.

All the branches on this same side ripped themselves out of the ground and began thrashing around, looking for the threat. Before Dean could get away, a tendril whipped itself around his ankles, and pulled his legs out from under him. It pulled Dean along the ground before flinging him away.

"Dean!" Sam shouted.

Dean hit a fire-damaged stump, but it didn't stop him. Instead, it burst into a cloud of ash and charcoal, and Dean flew a few more feet before he finally hit the ground.

Sam bounded over the thrashing branches. He didn't trip or get caught, and Mike was frankly amazed. Sam Winchester was either unnaturally coordinated, or extremely practiced. Considering a hunter's life, Mike was going with the latter since each part of the chopped branch was flailing around, writhing and turning into unpredictable hazards.

It looked like they were searching for each other.

It was a creepy thought, and one Mike didn't want to find out was true. He said a quick prayer, and grabbed the cut-off branch. It wiggled and curled, acting like a snake on one of those nature shows. Mike tightened his grip and dragged the limb away from the other piece—just in case. He pulled, and kept pulling until the branch's struggles lessened.

When Mike reached the brothers, Dean was on his feet holding his ribs. Sam hovered by his side.

"Anything broken?" Mike asked.

Dean grimaced. "Nah. Just bruised."

Mike nodded, willing to accept Dean's word.

Mike looked back at the central plant, at the branches growing out from it. In a circle.

A _big _circle. With some very big branches.

"So, when you gonna cut the next one?" Mike asked, because it was better than admitting he didn't want to be here, doing this. Dean's answering glare wasn't amused.

Mike cleared his throat. "So hand carving is out. How 'bout a chainsaw?"

Sam tipped his head. "Could work."

Mike's radio crackled at his shoulder. _"Sheriff."_

Mike pressed the button. "Go ahead, Maggie."

_"In the last ten minutes, Hilde's had three medical emergency calls,"_ Maggie responded. _"All out at Red Bluff, and all serious. What did you do?"_

Ten minutes, Mike thought. It had been about ten minutes since Dean cut that branch off.

Damn it!

He pressed the button. "Copy that, Maggie. Keep me informed." He cut off Maggie's indignant squawk.

Dean was now standing next to his brother, looking grim. They'd obviously heard every word.

"We definitely need a chainsaw," Sam said. "Maybe more than one."

"How do you figure?" Mike's voice was cold. "If cutting off one branch caused three people to collapse–"

Sam interrupted. "It feeds through its branches," he said. "If we cut off the branches fast enough then it shouldn't be able to do _anything_."

It sounded logical. It also sounded insane because the if they all reacted the same way as the first one then there'd be limbs thrashing about all over the place. Mike resisted the urge to wipe his palms against his pants. He was too old to be scared of this shit, wasn't he?

"Won't the branches continue to live on? They've got roots, right?" Dean asked.

Sam was already shaking his head. "They're not roots, really," he replied. "More like … stabilizers."

"We can find out," Dean said. "We've got a cut off branch right over there."

They all turned to look at the branch in question. It was still writhing and twitching, but it had definitely slowed down some. It looked safe to get close.

They picked their way through the still-living branches, aiming for the stump of the one Dean had cut. It was easy to spot. Aside from being short, it was turning ashy-green. Possibly it was dying since it longer useful for the survival of the main stem. And if that was the case, Mike thought, then the branch Dean had cut would be dying, too.

He looked at the mess of intertwined branches, searching for the ugly ash-green one.

"Which one is it?" Sam asked. He and Dean were searching close to the main plant, but Mike had pulled it back, away from the trunk, in case it could reattach, or something.

Mike's breath stopped as a thought occurred.

He looked down at the ground. Sure enough, there was a five-inch branch near his feet. But instead of being dead, it was awkwardly fused to a smaller branch that was still attached to the main root.

"Boys," is all he said; all he needed to say to have the hunters join him in staring at the rejoined plant.

"Son of a _bitch_," Dean cursed.

Mike was inclined to agree.

.o0o.

The new plan was crazy. And stupid.

"There's got to be another way," Mike protested. Again. Discretely, he wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers, before hooking them around his belt.

He got the same eye-rolled response from Dean, and the half-embarrassed shrug from Sam.

"I like the liquid nitrogen idea, I do," Sam said. "But there's no place to get any–"

Mike opened his mouth…

"_Quickly_," Sam continued before Mike could speak. "We can't get any quickly, unless you go to the hospital."

"And you don't want to go to the hospital, because your wife might find out and want to come along," Dean finished for him.

It was a perfectly valid point. Lizzie, for all her toughness, was a slip of a thing—maybe 120 pounds after a big meal. A five-inch branch had tossed six-foot Dean across the clearing and _through a tree_. Again, Mike shut his mouth and followed along behind the two hunters. They were a little slower this time. The wheelbarrow they were using to transport their supplies kept getting stuck in the overgrown field.

Sam moved to walk beside him. "Why didn't you become a hunter?"

In front of them, Mike saw Dean's head tilt slightly and knew he was listening.

Mike thought carefully. He knew there were hunters out there who would condemn him for leaving the life. Ones who would call him coward, or try to convince him to go back. He didn't think Dean or Sam was either of those, but it was hard to tell. In the end, he gave a mental shrug and told the truth.

"I wasn't good at it," Mike said, simply. "I'd freeze up on hunts second-guessing myself, and someone would get hurt. The third time I put Joshua into the hospital, I decided to stop." Joshua had been in an induced coma for nearly two weeks as they waited for the swelling in his brain to go down. His dad had been investigated by Child Protective Services as a possible abuser. The guilt had been crushing.

"It must have been hard on your family. Letting you go," Sam said, voice filled with sympathy.

"By that point, I think they were just relieved." An understatement, Mike knew. "But I did like protecting people, so…" He waved at his uniform.

"So you became a cop," Sam finished, smiling.

Mike smiled back. "It's better than doing nothing." Even though his heart rate still exploded, and his palms still sweated, and his mind still went blank on raids unless they'd been planned six ways from Sunday.

Not like this plan, which was "jump in and see if we can kill it".

They reached the main plant, but stopped in the burnt trees to prepare. Dean checked the chainsaw one more time. Sam looked over his flamethrower. Mike pulled on his gloves.

"Is it just me, or is that thing more active?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded agreement.

"Sun's going down. Could make it more active," Sam suggested.

"So do we wait until tomorrow?" Mike had to force the question out. His mouth was so dry it was painful.

"I don't think we can afford to," Sam said. "You've gotten two calls from Doc Cole since we first came here and the news isn't getting any better."

He was right. Damn it. Mike loosened his shoulders. "Are we sure this is going to work?" he couldn't resist asking, even though he knew it was a stupid question.

Dean's response was just as stupid. "Of course, it'll work. Piece of cake."

It was an obvious lie, but before Sam could finish a disparaging eye-roll, two things happened: The plant closest to the hunter _swelled_, and Dean doubled over clutching his chest. Two steps had Sam at his brother. "Dean, what is it? What happened!" Dean didn't respond. He just breathed, harsh and deliberate.

Mike stared at the hunter, thinking back over all the incidents he'd witnessed, and it was so obvious…

"I think I know what it feeds on," Mike said. The two hunters glanced up at him.

"Lies," he continued. "It feeds on lies." He looked at Dean. "You lied right now, when you said you knew it would work. You can't know that. Brogan lied to me when I talked to him, and Joesy lied continually."

"The fisherman lied about his accomplishments," Sam said, nodding. "The builder was running a scam, so he was lying."

"The politician was probably lying about everything to everybody," Dean added.

"And Beth was lying about being okay," Mike concluded sadly.

Sam grimaced. "It's a good theory, but we need to test it."

Dean grinned, "That's easy–"

"No!" both Mike and Sam yelled at the same time.

"You're already hurting," Sam pointed out even as Mike said "I think the effects are cumulative."

"Let me do it." The words were out before Mike had thought to say them. Which meant he couldn't take them back, and it didn't look like the Winchesters were going to reject the offer, either.

The brothers exchanged looks, discussing it. Mike struggled to bring his breathing back under control. He already knew they would agree, so now he'd have to do it.

Mike took a couple steps closer to one of the thinner branches. Light was still hitting it, so it was easy to see.

Lizzie would kill him if she ever heard about this, he thought.

"My real name is Elvis Presley, and I'm an astronaut."

A slight shimmer on the leaves. A light tingle in his fingers.

He tried again. "I am a badass hunter," he said, "and I'm not afraid of anything."

This time, his left arm jolted, like being hit by a taser. It radiated across his chest. If that wasn't enough to prove his theory correct, the leaves pulsed—a pale grey-green shimmer moving across their surfaces—and the branch suddenly looked like a snake digesting a rabbit—all bulgy and full.

"I'd say that's proof," Sam said.

Dean snorted. "So all we got to do is not lie? That's it?"

"If only it were that easy," Sam replied.

"It _is _that easy," Dean said with a cocky grin.

Sam glared down at him. "Okay then. Tell me, Dean. What was Purgatory _really _like? Have you completely forgiven me for Ruby? Or the Campbells?"

Dean's expression hardened. There was bitter anger just under the surface. "What about you, Sam? How are you feeling, right now? Doing good? Think you're going to survive the trials?"

Mike saw the fight brewing—each of the brothers ready to hurl painful truths at each other. He stepped between them. "Boys! Whatever fight you're thinking of having, this is neither the time nor the place." Even though it would delay the final confrontation, his dark side whispered at him.

He stayed there, in the middle, a hand on each chest. A flimsy barrier to keep the peace until the brothers stepped away. Dean huffed out a breath and swung away. Sam turned around and rotated his neck and shoulders. Mike waited.

When they turned back to face Mike, their expressions were cleared of everything but stone-cold determination. Dean pulled the chainsaw out of the wheelbarrow. "Let's do this thing," he growled, and fired it up.

Dean pulled the chainsaw out of the wheelbarrow. "Let's do this thing," he growled, and fired it up.

Sam grabbed the homemade blowtorch, and Mike grabbed the extra-thick, extra-long gloves he would use to pull the severed branches away from each other.

It was still a really stupid idea.

Dean made the first cut—quick, clean. Sam burnt the ends as Mike pulled the cut branch up and tossed it aside. Then on to the next one. And then the next.

The cut branches curled and flailed. Mike caught one across the back of his thigh that took him down to the ground. But even he could see the leaves were already fading to grey, and the trunk was shriveling.

Cut. Burn. Pull. Cut. Burn. Pull. It became a routine.

The three of them moved in an uneven rhythm as they worked while dodging the branches that were fighting back. Mike could feel his fear bleeding away as he adjusted to the level of danger. He could actually think about something else. Like how they needed a breeze to clear out the thick smoke the burning branches were producing.

The smoke didn't rise into the sky like normal smoke, but seeped away at the edges like extra-thick dry ice. It didn't get more than knee-high usually, but Mike kept holding his breath because he didn't want to accidently breathe it in. Then he'd have to stop and force himself to breathe normally for a minute or two, so he'd stop feeling dizzy. Plus, his back made him slow. Slower than the Winchesters, who cut and burned like the pros they were. It was working, though. It had to be.

As more and more of the branches were cut, the main stem grew more agitated. Cut branches, and the shorter branches waved around like the arms of a Kraken. So now they'd added ducking and weaving to bending and throwing.

Mike stopped to breathe, bending over at first then walking in a tight circle, trying to stretch out his back. It was what allowed him to see movement in the trees.

"Dean!" Mike shouted. "Duck!"

Amazingly, Dean did, and the branch whipped harmlessly through the empty air. However, Mike didn't see the smaller branch closer to the ground until it emerged from the heavy smoke. It lifted the hunter up by one leg, and kept moving. Mike heard Dean curse right before he was tossed over Mike's head. He didn't go far, thank the Lord.

Like a pro, Dean rolled as he fell, and rose to his feet in a move straight out of Hollywood. It was only seconds, and then he was back at the chainsaw, firing it up.

Mike swore he heard the plant screaming in anger.

He also heard Maggie calling him over the radio. He ignored her.

Through the burnt-out trees, larger branches came curling in from the countryside. They were crudely truncated, as if the plant had ripped itself apart getting them back here. They didn't twirl through the air, anymore, but came down like hammers in a bizarre game of Whack-A-Mole. It stirred up the smoke, lifting it into the air, making his eyes sting and the clearing blur.

Even with the smoke, it was easy enough to dodge a couple of them, but then there were a half-dozen. Then it seemed like the air was filled with them, coming down or going up. "Sam!" Mike called as one aimed right at the large hunter.

Sam whipped around, flames still shooting from the homemade flamethrower.

The end of the branch caught fire and it recoiled. It whipped around, bashing into the torn branches next to it and knocking them off target.

Mike shook out his hands. He wasn't going to let them tremble because they could do this. They were doing it!


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four:**

They were barely halfway through the branches.

The large hammering branches had churned the ground into mud. The smoke whirled and twisted as they whipped through it, but at least it was slowly draining away into the surrounding woods. And they were making progress, but it was too much. Bending and twisting and pulling and dodging, for what felt like hours…

Mike couldn't relax anymore, couldn't find the rhythm. All he could do was dodge and pull, and toss the branch aside before moving on to the next one. His back was aching, and he was limping. And he was feeling every single hour he'd spent behind his desk instead of at the gym.

But he wasn't stopping.

Sam was working the flamethrower essentially one-handed since he'd been clipped on the shoulder, but he hadn't slowed down any. Dean was limping, too. The hunter kept up a curse-filled litany of all the things he was going to do with the plant once they'd cut it off from its power.

"I'm telling you the truth, you evil son-of-a-bitch," Dean growled. "I'm gonna dig you up, chop you up, and light you up. There's gonna be nothing left of you but mother-fucking ash!"

"Nearly out of gas," Sam called out.

Mike tried to pull himself straight. His back wasn't having it. He lumbered over to the wheelbarrow.

"Mike!" Sam yelled in warning.

Mike let himself fall to the side, rolling through the desiccated remains of the branches they'd cut before. A heavy stump thumped down where he'd been.

_"Michael Mitchell Hardy! Answer your radio!"_

Maggie had had enough of being ignored.

Mike picked himself up. He lifted a stiff hand to press the button. "Mags, not now."

He knew he sounded tired. He knew he sounded desperate. He even suspected he sounded afraid.

He also knew his Maggie, so he wasn't surprised when her tone shifted from demand to concern. _"You need back up?"_

The boys had put several gas cylinders in the wheelbarrow. Mike grabbed the nearest one and lumbered back to the fight. Halfway there, his back unkinked, and he straightened with a sigh of pure joy. It was always the little things…

"No," he said. "Handle things there and I'll work on this end." And that was it. Maggie signed off, curiosity and concern buried under determination.

The Winchesters had come out to meet him, far enough away from the hammering branches so they could catch their breath.

Mike handed the cylinder to Sam. "How do you think it's going?"

Dean shrugged. "Judging from its reaction, I'd say we're doing just fine."

Sam shook his head. "I took a quick jog around this area," he said. "Most of the branches are dying. A couple seem to have reattached. I gave them a quick burst, but…" The hunter shrugged.

"We'll go back and get them after," Dean reassured him. Sam tightened the nozzle, giving it one final twist, before nodding.

"Ready?"

Not even close, Mike thought, but he nodded anyway.

The plant had quieted some while they were gone. The stumps weren't moving as much, so the smoke was low to the ground. However, everywhere he looked detached limbs wiggled and squirmed, looking for ways to rejoin the main stem. There was so much movement the ground look like the Well of Souls from the first Indiana Jones movie—filled with snakes, and very, very dangerous.

And they had to walk back through those things...

Mike could feel his heart thumping. His head felt filled with helium and his fingers tingled as adrenaline flooded his body.

He couldn't do it.

Any misstep, and one of the long ones would swoop down, grab him about the neck, and chuck _him _at a tree, but he wouldn't bounce back like Dean had. He'd die. Like his parents. Like his brother. Like every hunter he'd ever known…

He couldn't do it. Shouldn't have to, because it was crazy, absolutely insane.

His vision started to grey out.

The hand that landed on his shoulder made him jump.

"Sheriff. You're okay." Sam's voice wasn't soothing. It was one soldier to another, telling him his back was covered, that he wasn't alone.

It also told him he had no choice. There was only one way out of this, and that was to keep going.

He straightened—when had he folded over?—and took a deep breath. Dean was watching him, distant, assessing his worth as a fellow soldier. Mike's blood pounded. He swallowed back his fear. He wasn't a kid anymore. He'd faced down drug dealers and drunk soldiers in bar fights. He could do this.

One final breath…He gave Dean a nod: he was ready.

Dean raised the chainsaw, pulling the cord and letting it rev, and they moved as a team back into the fray.

The plant reacted before they'd even touched a branch. The stem shuddered, the leaves twitched, and the still-attached branches lifted from the ground, flinging mud as they moved.

"Oh, this is gonna get ugly," Dean growled. The mud didn't stop him from jumping towards the nearest moving branch. It didn't stop Sam from lighting his flamethrower and searing the cut ends.

It did, however, stop Mike from being able to grip the stupid thing.

His hands slid along the thrashing limb. It was trying to get back to the main branch. The mud-covered leaves slipped through his gloves. The whole thing fell from his arms as he dodged a branch- hammer. Sam and Dean were nearly out of sight, but he could hear them, cutting and burning limbs while playing mole. They were slow, but unlike Mike, they weren't completely _useless_!

He growled in frustration, and anger overpowered fear as Mike gave the seared branch a vicious kick, but didn't move.

It cracked.

One thin line along its length, barely noticeable, but it was enough to reveal something new. Black goo seeped out and rolled together to form a blob that lay like syrup against the branch's skin. Mike had the horrible idea that if the blob touched the dirt it would burrow down and hibernate like those frogs in Africa. Waiting in the dirt for the chance to be reborn.

Before he could panic completely, the goo slowly transformed into a line of black smoke swirling in the unmoving air. It didn't drift away, though. Instead it pooled, balloon shaped, and purple sparks flared inside it.

Bewildered, Mike traced it back to the branch. The smoke was tied to the goo. The one turned into the other. That hadn't happened before. Had it?

As more of the purple-black smoke pulled itself out of the goo, the explanation for what he was seeing rose out of Mike's long buried memories: demon.

"Christo."

The smoked recoiled.

Son of a bitch. It _was _a demon, after all. They knew how to deal with a demon.

_He _knew how to deal with a demon: exorcism.

He side-stepped a hammer branch as he reviewed the ritual. He wasn't actually surprised when the short prayer rolled off his tongue the way his parents had taught him. They'd made him do it over and over and over again until he could recite it anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances. Once, his brother had caught him under the bleachers with Missy Parks and made him recite it while desperately looking for his pants.

Keeping up the chant, while dodging the whack-a-mole branches, was easy compared to that.

And it worked!

The smoke flared red and flamed into nothingness. Better still, it ran down it, hit the goo, and went into the actual branch. There was a muffled boom, the branch briefly swelled. Then it collapsed, all internal structure lost.

"It's a demon!" he shouted to the Winchesters as he moved to the next cut branch. "Weak, but still demonic.

Mike kicked the next one until it split and the black goo dripped out. He let some smoke gather before chanting the exorcism. He waited for the boom, and the collapse.

He couldn't believe it! This was so much easier than chainsaws and fire—not to mention how much happier his back was going to be…

"What do you mean?" Sam popped up and made Mike jump.

"Watch this." Mike kicked a severed truck until it split. He went through the exorcism, silently pointing out the line between smoke and goo.

The smoke make Sam frown, the flash made him smile, but the branch's boom and collapse made him laugh out loud. "Holy shit! Dean!" He turned to his brother. "Dean! You've got to see this!" The other Winchester looked up from the branch he was severing. Sam waved him over.

They met at one of the larger limbs they'd cut, still writhing in search of the main plant, and getting very close to another cut branch. This time, Sam kicked it and recited the exorcism. Flash. Boom. Collapse.

Dean cackled like a little boy at the contained explosion. "I love it!" he shouted. Dean whirled to kick the branch next to him. He stumbled a little over the words of the exorcism, but not enough to ruin its effectiveness. The smoke flashed. The flame ran into the goo, and the branch went boom.

Dean laughed in delight.

Sam joined him. "I know, right?"

Dean's smile turned mischievous. "Let's kick it in the ass, Sammy!"

Sam grinned back, huge and unbelieving.

Dean to another branch. "That's two!"

"Oh, it's _on_!" Sam shouted back.

They could've been school boys with a handful of illicit firecrackers. It didn't matter that an evil, demon-possessed plant was trying to kill them. That tomorrow or the day after, they'd be facing down something else trying to kill them. Today, they were boys blowing shit up. Years dropped out of their eyes. They ran around the clearing, kicking branches and chanting as fast as they could. Insulting each other with casual profanity.

For the first time since Brogan had exploded all over him, Mike laughed out loud. Not a chuckle, not an ironic punctuation, but a full on laugh, because _that_—right there—that was why being a hunter was awesome!

He shook his head at the Winchesters' antics, but the smile didn't leave his face. He followed behind them, exorcising the smaller plants the brothers missed in their quick-fire competition. After all, he had more than a decade on the Winchesters—he deserved a more sedate pace.

Soon, muffled 'whumps' filled the clearing. There were still branches flying through the air, but the hammers stopped falling. They were winning!

_"Boss?"_ Maggie's voice was level, but Mike heard an edge of 'too much'.

"I'm here, Maggie," he responded quickly. "What's up?"

_"We've been getting reports of explosions. Lots of them."_

Mike stepped away from where Sam and Dean were shouting like loons. "Fatalities?"

_"None."_

Mike let out a breath.

_"The reports are coming in from all over the county, all at once," _Maggie continued. _"But we can't find a reason. Except maybe buried pipelines, but the location don't match any pipeline–"_

Mike cut her off. "It's not pipelines, Maggie."

_"Mike…"_ Convince me, her voice said. Promise me that people won't get hurt if I believe you.

"It's not pipelines, Maggie. And it's not terrorists," he told her. "You don't need to worry about the explosions.

_"All right, boss. I won't worry,"_ she said back. _"But what do I tell people when they phone in?"_

"Tell them…. Tell them I'm on scene and everything's under control."

Behind him Dean fired up the chainsaw with a whoop. Mike turned to look as the hunter cut off the last few attached branches.

_"You've got it under control?"_ Maggie's voice was dry, but the ragged edge was gone.

He matched his tone to hers. "Well, it's mostly under control."

Dean kicked them as they fell, cackling in evil delight.

_"Okay. The sheriff's on the scene. They can talk to you tomorrow."_

It was an oddly comforting thought. The idea that he'd be around tomorrow to hear all the complaints. And there'd be paperwork. Ordinary, frustrating paperwork…

He watched as Sam chased down the smallest limbs. They were harder to find, since they were half-buried in the mud, but there were more of them, so Sam's shouted count started to overtake Dean's.

At thirty-five for Sam and twenty-nine for Dean (Mike had tapped out at sixteen), they were finally left with only the main stem. It was starting to look sickly—the cut ends were drying up, but Mike could see where new shoots were starting to appear.

"How do we get rid of that?" he asked.

Dean and Sam looked at each other. "Devil's trap?" Sam asked.

Dean nodded.

"Devil's trap?" Mike asked. He walked beside Sam as the hunter searched for a stick and explained. Dean walked around the central stem, clearing out the collapsed branches.

"Anything you need?" Mike asked. "Anything I can do?"

"You can grab the shovel," Dean said.

Mike limped to the wheelbarrow. He gave the small, folding shovel to Dean who used it to smooth the mud, preparing it for the design. Sam followed behind dragging deep lines in the mud with a stick.

Mike stood back, watching for any surprises, but aside for a couple small branches that tried to trip them, nothing happened.

Sam finished his line, and inspected it for gaps. Dean now had his own stick and was adding designs to the outside of Sam's circle. They weren't simple, but the two hunters never hesitated.

Mike took pictures of the patterns on his phone even though he hoped he'd never need one. Unfortunately, being able to trap demons sounded like a good precaution to have—liked a burglar alarm. While he watched, he tried to plan for what came after this. There were miles of branches. They'd all have to be checked. All of it would have to be gotten rid of safely. He'd have to explain why he wanted plant remains treated as hazardous goods.

"Do you think it'll be safe to burn the branches, or will it release toxins?" Mike asked.

Both Winchesters stopped to look at him. They looked at each other, eyebrows and shoulders working. Then Sam turned back to Mike. "No idea."

"Clean up's not really our area," Dean added.

Figured.

It took maybe fifteen more minutes before the brothers were satisfied with the design they'd made. Sam straightened, tossing his stick to the side. "Are we ready?"

Not really, Mike thought, but he stepped forward anyway.

Dean walked over to the wheelbarrow. He grabbed the axes and casually tossed one to his brother. "Hit it, let the smoke gather a bit, then chant?" he said. Sam nodded. Without a word, the two stepped forward, lifted their axes, and let them fall.

The plant didn't thrash. It didn't shriek. Instead, it blew out like a steam train venting—if the engine was powered by weapons-grade plutonium. Dean and Sam, still with their hands on the axes, were flipped into an airborne somersault. Before Mike could take a step, he was lifted, and flipped exactly like the Winchesters. He fell straight down onto his shoulder.

The only reason his collarbone didn't break was the mud. It gave him a slight cushion, but his hip shifted, and all his previous back and knee pains came back in one body-shaking pulse. His vision blanked. He lost all his breath. The world faded.

He wasn't sure how long he was out, but when he came back to the world, Sam and Dean were standing in front of him—leaning on each other actually. Mike thought they might be chanting the exorcism, but he couldn't hear them over the noise. The creature was using its nuclear plant to power a whistle. Both high enough to kill dogs, and low enough to reduce their guts to mush, Mike felt it in his _brain_.

A steady wind emanated from the plant, pushing the lesser smoke away and revealing purple-black evil-looking smoke spilling from the cuts and gathering into a dense cloud. It hovered over the main stem. Bright flashes, like lightning, lit it from the inside and it roiled, alive and angry.

Even as he rose to his knees in disbelief, the Winchesters dropped to theirs. Mike could see their mouths moving. He could also see blood seeping from their ears.

As if sensing the hunters' weakness, the cloud formed itself into a spike and charged at them.

It hit the invisible barrier with a bone-splitting _crack_. The demonic-cloud stopped. The accompanying wind did not. The Winchesters rocked back.

The cloud gathered itself back into the ball, even larger now, and Mike knew it would continue pushing against the barrier closest to the chanting hunters. If the wind got strong enough, it could damage the circle. He needed to do something.

He didn't want get any closer to plant. Not only because he didn't want to accidentally scuff the design, but because _he didn't want to get any closer_.

The purple-black smoke that had seemed pathetic in the little streams leached from the branches was a thick, threatening ball hanging above the stem. He could throw something at it, but that would be like fighting wildfires with spit balls.

Fire.

Mike looked around for Sam's little flamethrower. If there was still fuel in the canister. If he could figure out how to start it.

If he could _find it!_

There!

He stumbled over to it, tripping on collapsed branches, his vision going in and out of focus. It took him two tries to pick it up. Then he had to dig through his pockets for the Zippo lighter he always carried.

Open the fuel line. Flick the lighter.

The flames burst out.

_Don't drop it,for God's sake!_ he ordered himself.

He ignored his singed fingers, and opened the fuel to max. He pointed it towards the main stem, but he needed to get closer. He couldn't break the circle though. He knew that. He didn't have time to tie it to a stick. He could throw it, but his good shoulder was one big fireball of pain.

Screw it. His wife was a doctor. He'd get painkillers from her.

Using mud to jam the trigger, Mike grabbed it with both hands, swung it like a kid bowling for the first time, and let it go halfway through. Mike's shoulder seized. Pain spiked down to his tailbone. He dropped to his knees, but kept his eyes on the flamethrower. It arced up, sailing gracefully, with only minimal spin. It passed through the agitated cloud.

Mike blinked rapidly, praying desperately that he hadn't tossed it too hard.

He hadn't.

It landed inside the tangle of truncated branches. The sudden silence was somehow painful and frightening.

Then a groaning rumble started up. The plant burst into flames. Actual smoke billowed out, and it became nearly impossible to tell what was demon and what was smoke from the fire.

"Keep chanting!" He wasn't sure the Winchesters would hear him, but the murmur of Latin resumed.

_"Ergo draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica–"_

Grey-black smoke passed through the circles barrier, travelling out and up like normal, but the purple-black stuff could only go to the line of the pattern. It was like a glass wall surrounded it. Or a mime's cage that it circled, trying to find a way out.

One thing it didn't do, was gather back into the ball. He'd done it! He let himself droop a bit in relief.

The boys kept up their chant, taking turns, breathing ragged. Mike joined them when he could, but their phrasing wasn't what his family had used.

Then the whistle returned. Just a faint "scree" against his nerves, but Mike was sure it would soon build into the tsunami of sound it had been before. He wasn't sure that the sound was tied to the cloud being able to attack, but he didn't want to risk it. Couldn't risk it.

So what could he do to stop it?

_"Vade, Satana, inventor et magister–"_

He went back to the wheelbarrow sure there'd be something else there. His head was still pounding, and he ached all over, but his vision was stabilizing. He probably didn't have a concussion then. Lizzie would be glad.

He found the container of weed killer he'd insisted they buy. Found in the dark corner of Wilmerson's Feed and Farm, it was an old brand they didn't make anymore. And they didn't make it because it was flammable. Just apply heat…

He lugged it back to the outside line of the devil's trap. He struggled to loosen the cap, since every time he twisted his wrist, icy numbness flowed up his arm and his fingers spasmed. Frustrated, he braced the jug against his chest. It slipped as he turned and he squeezed it harder. It occurred to him that the liquid might fountain out with all the pressure he was putting on it. He'd get a faceful of poison.

He tipped his head back and kept twisting.

_"Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine–"_

When the cap was loose, he tossed it like he had the flamethrower. This throw was weaker, but still true. The quart container landed on the main stem, the weed killer spilled out, the flames went "whoosh", and the whistle died once again.

Instead the cloud roared.

All three of the hunters were blown flat. Regular smoke travelled horizontal, blocking most of the sky from view. When it cleared, leaves, struggling to regrow on the nearby burnt trees, had been blown off.

The purple-black cloud swirled inside of its cage. Not in a ball, not in a spike, but up against the invisible barrier, filling it up as high as Mike could see. It spun and it screamed, and the flashes grew bigger and more frequent.

_"Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire–"_

The boys neared the end of the exorcism. Mike joined in.

_"Te rogamus, audi nos!"_ Sam finished with fierce determination.

The plant screeched. Flames poured out of the plant, straight up and brightly red. Then, like a cheap horror film, they reversed and crawled downwards, into the ground. There was a small boom, and the hunter's rocked. Where the plant had been was now a hole, filled with the weird red flames. As they watched, the cloud was sucked down into the hole. Flames crawled up into it, burning it from the inside.

Mike could hear wailing. He thought that maybe he was catching a glimpse of Hell. He could've lived the rest of his life not seeing it.

Still, the demonic cloud disappeared, and that was what was important. Down and down and down until the clearing held only normal grey-black smoke from the smoldering branches.

Dean and Sam staggered over to Mike. Sam dropped to his knees beside him, but Dean stayed upright. Barely. Smeared blood trails were visible near his nose and under his ears, but his eyes shone as the demon was dragged back to Hell.

Mike's knees vibrated as the ground beneath them shook with muffled explosions. The only possible cause was if the fire had moved down to the roots and they were exploding as the branches had done. A moment of quiet, and then what remained of the stem and all its branches crumbled to ash. Even the leaves disintegrated. And when a breeze came up, some of it blew away.

Cautiously, Mike reached out and pinched some of it. He rubbed it between his fingers, muttering prayers of protection. It felt like normal wood ash—no tingle of toxins. He lifted it to his nose and sniffed. It smelt like normal wood ash, no hint of sulfur. "Christo," he said.

Absolutely, no response from anything.

He coughed out a laugh.

This was wonderful! It meant Mike wouldn't have to worry about it coming back, growing in the dark and re-infesting his county. Even more wonderful was looking up, and seeing that the smoke was gone—all of it. The sky above the clearing was turning from bright day to evening's deep blue. The clouds had hints of pink and gold. There were ducks above, squawking at each other as they flew south.

It was normal.

And safe.

Beside him Dean laughed, folding gracefully to sit in the mud. Not that any of them could get any dirtier. "Oh man, that was _awesome_!"

"I can't believe it was a demon," Sam said, staring at the hole. "I mean, how did it possess a _plant_?"

"Yeah, that's pretty fucked up," Dean agreed, still smiling.

"It had to have been the ritual. Something they did, some word they messed up," Sam continued.

Dean shrugged. For the first time since he'd walked into Mike's station, the frown was gone from between his brows, and he knew why: because they'd done it. And they'd survived.

"How about a shower and a couple of beers?" he suggested, unwilling to let the feeling go.

Dean's smile widened. "Oh _Hells_, yeah!"

Mike was going to suggest the roadhouse, but of course he'd closed that down. And he'd closed the diner next to the Sleep-Eez. "My place. One hour," he said. "I'll even grill some steaks."


	6. Epilogue

**Epilogue:**

It took closer to three hours before Mike could go home and change. The station had been going crazy, and Maggie had forced him to stick around and deal with the crowds while she helped Hilde with the 911 calls. Only after the station settled down, and the Mayor had been placated with the promise of a full report, could Mike shower and change into his spare uniform.

He'd already called the Winchesters to delay dinner. Now he called them to confirm. "So you ready for some steaks?"

Mike could hear the Impala's engine growling and some ancient rock tune playing, so he wasn't surprised, when Dean said, "Actually, we got a call and we're already on the road."

Mike tried not to feel disappointed. He told himself he hadn't been looking forward to sharing stories with the hunters, but he'd be lying. Fighting the possessed plant with the Winchesters had roused a sense of nostalgia within him. Dean and Sam could've been him and Joshua out on a hunt with their dad. They'd been so close then, but when Mike had left hunting, well…

Despite the gut-wrenching fear he'd always experienced when hunting the supernatural, now that the danger was past, he found he'd missed the camaraderie.

He wasn't a hunter, he reminded himself. He was the 48-year-old sheriff of an under-populated county.

"We can do it next time we're in your area, though," Dean added.

They signed off, and it was friendly enough, and sincere enough, but Mike knew it would never happen.

Suddenly, he couldn't face going home to his empty house. He pointed his crawler to the hospital instead.

It was chaos.

Organized chaos, but still a mad scramble of too many awaiting treatment and not enough room or people to do the treating.

He waited for Lizzie at the nurse's station in the ER, knowing that she would circle back to it eventually. She did, so engrossed in the chart she was writing on that she walked right into him.

"Mike!" She looked around, seeing the crowds of people. She grabbed his lapel and dragged him into an empty bathroom.

"What is going on?"

"It's over," he said. "You shouldn't get any new arrivals. Not from this."

She nodded. 'I figured. Some of the milder cases just suddenly got better. All their symptoms? Gone."

"About three hours ago?" he asked.

"Yes," she confirmed. "How'd you know?"

"Because we found what was causing it, and got rid of it."

Lizzie's eyes narrowed. She gave him a sharp-eyed going over. Mike straightened, trying to prove he was okay. He failed.

"Your shoulder," she said accusingly.

"And hip," he admitted. "I'll have them looked at tomorrow."

She hummed neutrally. "I'll get you something from the dispensary."

He'd always known she was wonderful.

"What about the other victims," Mike asked.

"You mean 'cases'?" Lizzie corrected. "'Victims' indicates attackers which means investigations."

"You don't think state health will investigate?"

She waved a dismissive hand. "There are enough similarities in symptoms that we can write it off as water-borne bacteria. People can boil their water for a couple weeks."

Mike looked at her in surprise.

She lifted her eyebrow in response. "I worked in a huge bureaucracy. Cover-ups and deflection were part of the job."

"I'm not sure I wanted to know that," Mike said dryly.

She lifted a work-roughened hand to his face, scratching over his beard stubble. "You are such a boy scout," she said with fondness. She nuzzled in for a moment before drawing back. "You even smell like a fire pit. Or a box full of matches." she said with a small laugh.

"Well, fire's good for cleaning up a lot of stuff," he explained sheepishly. "And sometimes it makes it explode."

She laughed. "_I'm_ not sure I wanted to know that."

He smiled back at her, glad that he'd managed to lift the exhausted look from her face, even if for a little while. He wrapped his hands around her hips and drew her closer. Under the smell of antiseptics and illness, her natural scent drifted up to him. Much nicer than the sulfur and old cow patties of the field.

"I was thinking of grilling a steak," he said. "I could do up some chicken for you," he offered. "I'll put out some wine…"

She scrounged up her nose. "Don't bother. I have no idea when I'll be getting out of here."

He'd expected it, but it was still disappointing.

"Nap before driving home, okay?" he said. "I want you home in one piece."

She leaned against him, pressing her body to his. Her smile was inviting. "I'll do that, Sheriff Hardy. If you promise to be in good enough shape later to take advantage of my unharmed body."

"Yes, ma'am!"

With another small laugh, she gave him a quick kiss. She also held his hand when they exited the washroom, and Mike tried to control his blush when the nurses cat-called at them.

Still, he watched her go. Her brisk walk that was still somehow feminine.

She turned around to give him one last wink, and somehow it was okay that he was going home alone, that he wasn't going to catch up on what was happening in the supernatural world, that he was a middle-aged sheriff in a small county.

This was the life he'd chosen.


End file.
